


The Maze (light breaks where no sun shines)

by aprilclash, baeconandeggs



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Greek Mythology, Alternate Universe - Percy Jackson Fusion, Angst, BAE2017, Character Death, Eventual Happy Ending, Gore, Language, M/M, Memory Loss, mentions of abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-30
Updated: 2017-05-31
Packaged: 2018-11-07 01:42:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 87,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11048670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aprilclash/pseuds/aprilclash, https://archiveofourown.org/users/baeconandeggs/pseuds/baeconandeggs
Summary: “Your eyes are so pretty. There’s silver in them.”“It’s a waning moon. It means I’ll die young.”Chanyeol laughs, a deep, booming sound that bounces on the walls of the well and comes back multiplied, as if one hundred Chanyeols were laughing at Baekhyun. “Who told you something that stupid?”And Baekhyun doesn’t even know what he’s holding his breath for, if it’s for Chanyeol’s words, his smile, his entire existence. He just stands there, panting harshly, confused and scared and covered in dirt and darkness, his eyes brilliant in the eternal night of the maze.





	1. prologue: maze / λαβύρινθος

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: The celebrities' names/images are merely borrowed and do not represent who the celebrities are in real life. No offense is intended towards them, their families or friends. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this fictional work. No copyright infringement is intended.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So when I started to write this fic I already knew what I was getting myself into. I will not beat around the bush. This is, in short words, a story about death, about hope, and about being lost. I felt lost too while writing this fic, many times I had to go back and change something or I hit a dead end and I had to start all over again. In a way, I feel like my frustration while writing this fic reflects the complexity of the fic itself, so if you find it hard, obscure, difficult to read and complicated, that's exactly how it should be and how I wanted it to be.  
> Now to the actual notes:  
> -Please read the tags/warnings carefully, but note that I didn't tag for sad ending. (If you really believe I can write a sad ending you don't know me at all.)  
> -This fic was part of the #BAE2017 fic fest, for the prompt #007  
> -There was so much I wanted to do with this prompt, but I had to rush through the ending and cut at least three storylines (leaving out the unrequited!sebaek route was so difficult...) or I would've never finished this fic. Even though I could only express a small part of what I meant to due to lack of time and personal talent, I hope you can still enjoy the final outcome.  
> -This is a work inspired both by Greek Mythology and the Percy Jackson demigods series, and even though I researched a lot, especially in regards to the mythology parts, I didn't follow them too closely as much as I simply took inspiration and built my own world where I could. (Also: words like phos/phoi, the names of the cities and the titles of the chapters all come from Ancient Greek, which I haven't studied in years, so if someone wants to point out some mistakes please do it.)  
> -Most of this fic is unbetaed due to lack of time, so I apology for any mistakes.  
> -A special thank you goes to the prompter, to s. and to s. who were my brainstorming beta and my spelling/grammar last minute beta for some parts, and all the people who listened to this idea and gave me feedback. Also, my greatest gratitude goes to the mods for putting up with me and my delayed extensions.  
> -Note that I used many foreign words. All of them came from Ancient Greek (they were partly manipulated for the sake of aesthetics but still, Ancient Greek. You can find the literal translation in the notes at the end of the chapter~  
> Also, I've never been busier in my life, but I really love everyone who's read and commented this fic. You're the best and I'll reply to your comments as soon as I can. <3

_Light breaks where no sun shines;  
Where no sea runs, the waters of the heart  
Push in their tides;  
And, broken ghosts with glow-worms in their heads,  
The things of light  
File through the flesh where no flesh decks the bones._  
  
  
  
prologue: maze / λαβύρινθος  
  
  
  


**24**

  
  
The maze whistles, cold air blowing through Baekhyun’s hair as he walks into the darkness. The boy takes a few halting steps and turns around to look in the direction the draft came from. It was delicate, nothing more than a light breeze, an argentine whistle, and it would be easy to think it was just a light breeze, a meaningless waft – who knows, maybe a geyser exploded in one of the lower levels, pushing a gust of noisome air in Baekhyun’s direction, or something like that. It would be easy, but it wouldn’t be wise. It wouldn’t be safe. Nothing in the maze is ever safe. And Baekhyun is too experienced, too old, too tired and too stubborn to trust the maze. So he stops completely, all his senses on alert.  
  
The tunnel is painfully empty. Baekhyun is not carrying any torch with him, nor any other light, but the walls of the gallery shimmer with the faintest traces of bioluminescence, residual radioactivity captured and refracted thousand times by the minute shards of crystals littering the sidewalls of the tunnel. It gives the stone a faint glow of teal, turquoise, and sometimes a weak, shy pink. _Pink quartz_ , thinks Baekhyun. _Where in this fucking hell am I?_  
  
He would really like to know, because this is not his route, he knows his route and this is not it, and oh no, he’s fucked, he’s beyond fucked, and the messenger bag containing an urgent dispatch for Pophos – a dispatch that will never reach the city on time now that Baekhyun has lost his way – burns where it’s pressed against his side and everything suddenly seems a tad more meaningless when the ground starts moving and the word _fucked_ reaches a whole, new, fucked up level.  
  
It starts as a breath, a whisper coming from the deepest crevices of the heart, like a warning, like an omen, like the biggest _I told you so_ Baekhyun has ever heard. And it grows, oh, it swells, high and shrill like a screech, sharper and thinner at every turn, every corner, like a silver blade honed on black stone, until it’s a whistle, another one. The sound runs over Baekhyun without hurting him and disappears behind a corner, echoing on the narrow corridors of the labyrinth, languishing and withering, until it fades away in the distance. Lost in the darkness, just like Baekhyun is, all alone in a silence so deafening he can’t even hear his own heartbeat.  
  
Two whistles. Oh, man, fucked up can’t even begin to describe this situation.  
  
Baekhyun starts running, just as a third whistle echoes in the darkness and the walls around him begin to crumble. He doesn’t watch where he’s going, he can’t fucking see anything in this mess, but he doesn’t stop, he’s never stopping – if he stops, he dies – step after step after step, shaky on the collapsing ground, feeling the void beneath his feet. He slams against a wall, or it would be more accurate to say through the wall, and then the entire level collapses and he slides, in a waterfall of rubble, dust and curses, into a ravine. Mercifully, his fall ends there.  
  
He stops, takes one or two deep breaths and it hurts. Who knows, maybe it’s the dust scratching against his lungs, maybe he’s finally broken a bone or two and he’ll end his days languishing in these galleries, an easy prey for the Furies. It’s not like he hasn’t been waiting for this, for the moment of his death. It’s not like he doesn’t know his expiration date should’ve been a few years ago. The Hiereus is the Temple of Dakrya goes out of his way to remind him every time they meet.  
  
_Don’t be melodramatic and stop thinking about that old man’s words,_ says Chanyeol’s voice in his head, so clear it almost sounds like he’s standing next to Baekhyun and not in a cavern a couple of miles under Dakrya. It would be nice to have Chanyeol here, all skin and bones, legs that go on forever, warm eyes, warm hands and _dimples_ , teasing Baekhyun and calling him showy and too dramatic.  
  
“Easy for you to judge, you’re not the one who’s just rolled in a fucking hole in the middle of fucking nowhere.”  
  
_Language, brat._  
  
Chanyeol is not here, obviously, but Baekhyun has heard him complain about his own foul language too many times to be able to forget him in six lifetimes. Besides, it sucks to be alone when you’ve almost died. At least, the memory of Chanyeol’s voice keeps him company.  
  
When he tries to move, he finds out he’s not dying, not yet – _ah, take this Hiereus, old psycho, I might be expired goods but I’m still surviving just fine_. His chest hurts and a theatrical, exaggerated bruise is blooming on his sternum, but other than that he’s fine.  
  
_Told you so,_ Chanyeol would say. Of course he would.  
  
Around Baekhyun, the ground is still shaking faintly and he can hear rumbling and crackling in the distance. The maze is reassembling.  
  
He draws his knees to his chest and hugs them while the entire system falls apart and rebuilds itself anew. New caverns, new tunnels and galleries and deep crevices and gaping pits, as if Baekhyun’s job wasn’t enough difficult when he had a map he could use. Well, now not only his map is completely useless, but it’s lunch time and the Furies are already screeching, leaving their huts to find some food. It’s late, too late, the Darkest-Hour, and Baekhyun shivers when he realize he’s completely, utterly lost.  
  
“A whole new level of fucked up,” he murmurs, as soon as the maze has stopped shifting around him. “I think I’m lost. And it’s the Darkest Hour. Now I only have to tick a romantic tête-a-tête with a Fury from my list of death wishes and I’ll be able to go down as the dumbest Harbinger in history.”  
  
There’s no answer for him in the pitch black of the tunnel, but it’s not like he was expecting one. Even Chanyeol’s voice in his mind keeps a merciful, disapproving silence. Oh, the joy of receiving the cold treatment even from his own mind.  
  
Baekhyun gets up and stretches, ignoring the screams of protest of his joints. The maze, usually silent, now echoes with screeches, with snarls and growls and howls. It’s the Darkest-Hour, the time of the monsters, and Baekhyun was stupid enough to be caught in the middle of it like a rookie. His cheeks light up in shame. He hopes no one tells Yerim and Taehyung or he will never hear the end of it. (He doesn’t even want to think what Chanyeol, the real Chanyeol, will say, because Baekhyun right now is pretty much grown insensitive to criticism – it happens when your entire city kinda hates you – but Chanyeol can always find a way to get under his skin and make him shake. It’s so unfair.)  
  
The gallery is darker than before. Even the faint bioluminescence that clung to the walls until a few minutes ago is gone, leaving Baekhyun to swim in a black so thick that walking in it feels like falling, an endless, silent fall. The Darkest-Hour, indeed.  
  
There’s a reason no one ever wants to spend the Darkest-Hour in the maze, and it’s because for most Harbingers it means certain death. But Baekhyun is not most Harbingers. He’s _the_ Harbinger, Dakrya’s best messenger, favorite of the phoi. That’s what he tells himself, chest tight, eyes shut even tighter, trying to put his racing heart under control. This is not the first time it happens – the clogging feeling in his lungs, darkness settling around his neck and choking him with thick, long fingers – but experience and time never managed to made this easy. Somehow, they made this harder. _Come on, breathe, relax. It’s not the first time you spends a Darkest-Hour in the maze, and, if the phoi help, it won’t be the last._  
  
Baekhyun’s eyes burn when he kneels on the ground, joining his hands together in prayer to summon the phoi. “Please, can I have a little more light?” he asks, his voice thin like a thread of silk. When he opens his eyes again, a thin silver stain, like a moon scythe, is glowing inside them.  
  
The phoi don’t answer immediately and, for a moment, Baekhyun is afraid they didn’t listen or that they abandoned him. It never happened to him – that’s why they call him the favorite – but he’s heard about other Harbingers who were discarded and left alone to die in the maze, so he prays harder, bowing until his nose is touching the ground.  
  
He hears their murmurs first. They whisper among each other, probably talking about him, but he doesn’t understand what they’re saying. It doesn’t matter, because a moment later little wisps of light bloom mid-air, silver, pale blue and violet, in front of his eyes, like ripples of color in the constant, solid black, shivers in the darkness. It’s not much, barely enough for Baekhyun to see the walls around him and the little stones signaling the path on the ground. It’s not much, but it’s light and it shines, in the eternal night of the maze, just for him.  
  


~

  
  
  
  


**25**

  
  
Baekhyun was fourteen years old when his eyes flashed silver for the first time, in the little house he shared with his young mother and the ghost of a brother who was gone too soon for Baekhyun to be able to remember his face. Baekbeom’s eyes too had flashed silver when his voice had cracked, on the day Baekhyun saw him for the last time. He had the silver curse of a Harbinger in his eyes, the same curse Baekhyun would find, years later, in his own eyes.  
  
A curse, say the people in Dakrya. A curse, says the Hiereus from behind his silver mask, as he gives the order to flog Baekhyun, _again_. A gift, said Baekhyun’s mentor, Yoona, when she saw him for the first time, tiny and scared and on the verge of crying. She had taken his hands in hers – she had tiny hands, Yoona; all of her was tiny, she was only two years older than Baekhyun – and she had hugged him.  
  
“It’s not a curse, it’s a gift. It means we can do something no one else can do. We can walk in the maze, we can find a light even in the deepest darkness. Don’t you think it’s amazing? Don’t you think you’re amazing?”  
  
Baekhyun thought she was amazing. Now he knows she was probably scared shitless, that she was only telling him the same things her mentor had told her, in a pathetic, but sincere attempt to reassure him. Baekhyun has said the same words to his _pais_ (he has said them many times, but not to the same _pais_ , since none of them ever lasted) and now he knows why she did it. She wanted to take that blast of hope, protect it, make it last, before the maze shattered it forever. And it was easy, easy to believe in her thin voice, thin wrists, thin lips, in the way her entire face lit up when she smiled, her eyes glowing like silver jewels, like the most beautiful thing Baekhyun had ever seen in a black city of coal miners and dirty beggars. “The phoi have chosen you, Baekhyun, and you must honor their decision. Be kind, be fast, be brave. Be grateful for this.”  
  
Baekhyun is grateful. Ten years he has been a Harbinger, walking in the maze and carrying letters from one underground city to another, following feeble, pale lights through the countless swirls and turns and galleries and caverns of the Netherworld. Ten years is a long time for a Harbinger. Most of them last less than three. Not many make it to five. Ten is a miracle, a tavern tall-tale, and a far-fetched one. Baekhyun is grateful.  
  
“Thank you,” he says, like he always does whenever the phoi listen to his prayer and answer his call. His voice is shaking and, when he bows, this time his forehead touch the ground. The little lights shake around him, like giggling fairies. They don’t have a real body, nor a real face, they’re just specks of light, glows, sparkles lighting up like stars in the eternal night of the maze, but if they could Baekhyun is certain they would be smiling at him. They always like him better when he’s polite, when he says his _please_ and _thank you_.  
  
Baekhyun uses the newly-found light to inspect the ground, expecting to find gravel and crystal shards. He finds soft, wet dirt instead, and a series of flat, circular stones signaling a path.  
  
“We’re not where I thought we would be,” he says, scratching his head. He opens the messenger bag strapped at his side and rummages inside it. His fingers brush against the heavy envelope he’s delivering to Pophos, a smaller and definitely less important package of commercial documents and his last ration of water and food.  
  
“Come on, where is it?” he murmurs, growing impatient, until his hand finally closes on a threadbare, dirty map. He gestures for one of the tiny lights gliding playfully around him to come closer. The phos complies, stopping in front of his face to cast his light over the map. “We left Dakrya and took this route. But this wall here had collapsed,” he mumbles, while the phos flies up and down, agreeing with his analysis. “And we had to take the long route through the dry canyon to come back on the Old Path... But when the Darkest-Hour began we weren’t nowhere near the Old Path. So where are we now?”  
  
Baekhyun frowns. Somewhere along the way he must’ve taken the wrong route, but now he doesn’t know where he is and for how long he’s been walking in the wrong direction and... And now it’s the Darkest-Hour and the map is useless. There’s no way to know what will happen to the maze for the next few hours.  
  
The little glow bristles, flying against the map. Baekhyun bites down a complaint when the little creature hits the chart he’s carefully spent the last ten years drawing, but there’s no real damage. The pale blue fire of the phoi doesn’t burn. It leaves a trace though, a shiny blue halo on the paper, near the big dark circle that indicates the city of Amartia.  
  
Baekhyun frowns. “Amartia? This is Seungkwan’s jurisdiction! How the hell did we end up here? We’re too far away!” He bites his lips, trying to guess where he went wrong. “Did we stumble on a Stranger-Place? It’s the only possible explanation on how I managed to travel to a completely different jurisdiction without realizing... Did I take the wrong exit at the end of the canyon? I did, didn’t I.., You could’ve told me I was going in the wrong direction...”  
  
The phos shrugs and bristles, a little angry. Baekhyun raises his hands and lowers his head. “I apologize, I didn’t mean to be ungrateful.”  
  
The tiny glow seems to accept his apology, at least. Baekhyun sighs and wonders why the phoi didn’t tell him he was on the wrong path. Then, shaking his head, he realizes he doesn’t want to know. The first thing Yoona taught him when he became her _pais_ was to trust the lights. They always know better. “If there’s a danger,” she had said, “they will try to take you as far away as possible from it, so trust the phoi, Baekhyun. As long as they’re with you, you will have a chance to survive. And don’t forget, be…”  
  
Grateful. Always. Baekhyun trusts the phoi, like he’s never trusted anything else, not even Yoona. Not even… Well, he doesn’t know who he would trust more between the phoi and Chanyeol. It’s a close tie. He shakes his head, refusing to think about Chanyeol who is miles and miles away, in Dakrya. He can’t get distracted, not during the Darkest-Hour, not if he wants to come back and see Chanyeol again, for real.  
  
“Alright. We’re completely lost, aren’t we?” Well, the phoi aren’t, but he certainly is. He looks down, at the flat stones dotting the naked ground again. He remembers Taehyung talking about certain paths in his territory, marked by stones, but he doesn’t remember what they are for. Were they marked because they were dangerous or because they were safe? Would that even matter during the Darkest-Hour?  
  
He takes a look at the little lights floating lazily around him, but they seem calm enough. They can sense his distress though, and their glow intensifies, lighting up the narrow tunnel in a flurry of pale shaky hues, not enough to show everything but enough that Baekhyun won’t trip on his own feet while he walks.  
  
There’s only a handful of them in the tunnel and for that Baekhyun heaves a sigh of relief. It means it’s still safe. Phoi seem to gather in great quantities only when they sense danger lurking from the darkness. Baekhyun likes to think it is because they wish to protect Harbingers, but he can’t know for sure.  
  
The only thing he knows, the first thing he learned as a Harbinger, was that the phoi are the only light standing between him and the darkness of the maze. Magical fires languish and die in the tunnels, smothered by the thick magic of the maze, and real fires... No one has seen a real fire for hundreds of years. Real fires belong to the Overworld together with the sun, the wind, the flowers and many other things Baekhyun is not supposed to know. (Things Chanyeol told him anyway.)  
  
Baekhyun counts the phoi again before he leaves. One, two, three, thirteen. Yes, it should be fine, he thinks. The Furies are hunting right now so the chance of encountering one of them is still high, but the phoi would warn him. Besides, it can’t get worse of that time he walked straight into the hut of a Fury and got almost eaten alive. (That was a terrible experience and it made Chanyeol go out of his mind with worry for weeks.)  
  
A phos drifts in front of Baekhyun’s eyes, waking him up from his reverie. The boy blinks. “Yes, you’re right. We should move. It’s not wise to stay in the same place for too long.”  
  
In the distance, the maze keeps shifting, reshaping itself into something new, something obscure and even more dangerous than usual, just for a few hours. The darkness thickens around Baekhyun, stopped only by the flickering lights of the phoi.  
  
He takes a last look at the map before he stows it in the backpack. In the last ten years since he was appointed a Harbinger, Baekhyun has written down everything he knows about the maze. Shortcuts, traps, the location of nests, safe zones where he knows he can stop to regain his breath and Stranger-places where he’s not supposed to go. He doesn’t really need the map – he has already memorized every route anyway, but looking at it always helps him put things in the right perspective. The distance separating Dakrya from Pophos seems so tiny, only a few inches, and Baekhyun could pretend to walk it with his fingers. With the map and the help of the phoi, he could walk that distance in less than two days, faster than any other Harbinger has ever been. But in the Darkest-Hour, maps are useless. Memory is useless. In the Darkest-Hour, Baekhyun is lost.  
  
“I only have you guys,” he says to the phoi. He extends a hand and the closest glow, tiny and little, like a snowflake made of light, flies into his palm. “Will you show me the way, little one? Please?”  
  
Most Harbingers think the phoi can’t understand human language and they only react to sounds and voices, but Baekhyun is sure they know what he’s saying. He’s sure they’d talk back to him, if they could. The phos lifts off from his hand and floats around his head twice before delving into the darkness of the tunnel, soon followed by all the other lights. Baekhyun has no other choice than to follow them, delving deeper into the belly of the earth.  
  


~

  
  
  
  


**26**

  
  
They proceed quickly and in silence. The phoi move all at once like white butterflies, bright against the dark walls of the tunnel, and the boy follows their glow. As they advance, their light lifts the thick veil of darkness around Baekhyun, showing him the naked stone of the walls of the gallery, stalactites, stalagmites and veins of that clear crystal the people from the cities seem to love. The tunnel, originally narrow and shallow enough that Baekhyun had to walk keeping his head down not to tumble against the stone ceiling, expands around him. It grows darker as it becomes larger, and soon the light of a dozen phoi is not enough for Baekhyun to see its borders. He subconsciously walks closer to the wall on the left side, touching it with his hand to make sure he’s not losing the way. The darkness has become so heavy it’s difficult to breathe and for a moment Baekhyun fears they have gone too far, too deep, where the air is rarefied and poisonous and only the most ferocious things live. A quick look at his compass reminds him it’s still the Darkest-Hour and not even his instruments work. _Relax, Baekhyun, the phoi would never take you in the deepest levels. You’re overreacting because you’re tired and scared._ He keeps walking.  
  
Their journey is so peaceful it makes Baekhyun wary. The maze is never peaceful. It’s uneventfully dangerous at its best, a tragedy at its worst. The thin, impalpable feeling that something horrible is waiting for you around the corner impregnates the place. Usually, when you can’t see any danger around you, it means it’s already too close, too late for you to avoid it. Baekhyun makes himself as small as he can, keeps his eyes wide open and listens to the voice of the galleries and to the cries of the Furies, ready to dash. _Move it, or lose it,_ Harbingers say. He keeps walking.  
  
Following the phoi, he turns right at the first bifurcation and left at the second. At the end of the tunnel, just as he’s about to walk in a bigger, darker cave, the lights leading him halt suddenly and Baekhyun stops with them. He watches them flutter around him. They look upset. Their glow flicker, up and down, strong, weak, strong again. Their number is increasing, and rapidly. They amass at the entrance of the dark cavern. A quick look shows there’s only more inside.  
  
“I don’t really think going in there is a good idea,” says Baekhyun, softly, and the phoi seems to agree. The entrance of the cave looks like a cold mouth ready to devour him. Baekhyun gets closer and listens to the sounds of the earth. He can hear the insistent sound of water dripping from the ceiling, the cold wind blowing through the natural galleries made of stone and crystal and something else, something deeper, hungrier. A growl comes from the inside. It rolls on the walls, getting stuck on the fissures and cracks on the stone and the floor shakes with it. When it reaches Baekhyun, it’s twisted and distorted, but the boy recognizes it anyway.  
  
“An Eyche,” he murmurs, breathless. He shivers, swallowing a thick, cold lump of fear. “We have to go back!” He steps backwards, trying to get away from the passage that leads into the chamber, but the phoi stop him.  
  
“What are you doing? Let me go!” The Eyche is feeding, hopefully not on another Harbinger, but Baekhyun can’t risk his luck. If the monster smells him, he’s a dead man. He has no weapon against the Furies other than his stealth, so he turns around and tries to leave, but the phoi stop him again and again, flying in front of him every time he tries taking a step. Baekhyun could flip them away easily, but that wouldn’t be a wise idea either.  
  
“What do you want me to do?” he half-whispers, half-screams. The phoi ignore his plea and push him towards a tiny niche in the wall. He has to crouch to fit inside, but he obeys. That’s when, from the other side of the tunnel – right where Baekhyun was trying to go when the phoi stopped him – comes another sound, a snarl this time, so sharp and hungry and terrible Baekhyun’s first instinct is to get up and run away. But he can’t, he’s still trapped in that crevice of the wall, almost unable to move from how much he’s curled up on himself. The phoi have saved him, again. It’s a Lamia, half serpent and half-ghost, so scary her victims can do nothing but run away from her, revealing their position. She eats them still alive. Baekhyun almost whimpers at the thought.  
  
The Lamia hisses her way through the tunnel. He can feel her slithering on the ground, close enough to touch him. But she doesn’t know he’s there and she moves past him, entering the cavern where the Eyche is. Then, the fight begins.  
  
Baekhyun wants to turn around and see what’s happening, but he doesn’t dare. He stays perfectly still, even if his shoulders hurt, his legs hurt, his back hurts and his heart beats so strongly it’s a wonder he hasn’t already been spotted. The Lamia screams but the Eyche growls like a dying animal, and at some point he can hear the sickening noise of flesh being torn apart. Then, silence.  
  
The phoi keep him waiting for hours. He watches them disappear, one by one, like lights in the morning – except there’s no light here, there’s never light in the maze. Baekhyun stays as still as he can, counting the steps separating him from home in his head. He thinks about his long gone family, about the other Harbingers, about his city, Dakrya. He thinks about Chanyeol. He could sleep, but the pain keeps him awake. Besides, he’s too scared of being found and eaten in his sleep. He wants to be there when he’ll leave. He wants a last thought. He thinks, after all he’s done, he deserves one.  
  
When the phoi finally allow him to move, Baekhyun scrambles up to his numb feet, shaking his leg to get blood back into them. “Is it safe now?” he asks. The words feel too loud. It’s just a feeling, but every sound seems to travel farther in the total darkness, making it easier for Furies to stop him.  
  
“Can I go?” The lights don’t answer, but he still follows them inside the cave, because he has nowhere else to go. _Please,_ he prays, _please take me home safely. Please. I don’t want to die._  
  
In the cave, the air reeks of blood and rotten flesh. The stench is so strong Baekhyun has to fight the impulse to bend down and retch. He breathes with his mouth, keeps his eyes steady on the lights in front of him. There’s a lot more of them now, cluster of stars showing him the wide, empty chamber. The cave is majestic, cold and lonely like a cathedral. There is nowhere to hide. _Don’t think about it, don’t think about it._ He tries to think about nice, pretty things. The majestic, black stonewalls of Dakrya, his mother’s crooked smile, the purple magic fires waiting for him at home. Chanyeol. No matter what, he has to survive and go back to Chanyeol, who is waiting for him. (Always waiting.)  
  
The wave of nausea retreats. Baekhyun walks, step after step. His eyes are dry and red, his nose is clogged. He feels cold, hungry and thirsty. He’s lost. But this is the life of a Harbinger, so he follows the lights and prays they will take him home safely. He keeps walking.  
  


~

  
  
  
  


**27**

  
  
It’s difficult to measure time underground. The cities have clock towers and hourglasses to count the hours, but there are no ways to count the days because there is no sun. Not down in the Netherworld, at least. The sun, if it still exists, only shines on the Overworld, on the surface of the earth, beyond the Lethe. But no one has seen it for more than one thousand years, and probably no one ever will. (Even though Chanyeol always says he’ll take Baekhyun away to see the sun, someday.)  
  
There are no physical days, but there are cycles, based on the count of hours that made a day back when humankind still lived on the surface of the earth. One cycle is twenty hours and two cycles is the time it usually takes for Baekhyun to travel from Dakrya to Pophos and back.  
  
“How long has it been already?” asks Baekhyun, to no one. The three or four phoi who are still following him blink, but they offer no answer. He lays a hand over the stone. It’s cold and dry, where a few hours ago it was warm at the touch and humid, as if pulsing with unexpressed energy, drumming along with the heartbeat of the earth. The Darkest-Hour is, thankfully, over. In another seventy hours a new one will begin, but Baekhyun doesn’t think he’ll still be around to see it, unless he reaches Pophos immediately. He doesn’t have any food left and he’s running out of water too, but his biggest problem is the lack of sleep. “The Darkest-Hour ended a few hours ago, so, according to my calculations… I haven’t slept for three cycles, almost four.”  
  
That’s quite long. He raises a hand and watches it shake at the light of the phoi. He doesn’t know if it’s his hand that’s shaking or his vision that’s failing. He doesn’t know what would be better. He closes his eyes, only to rub them, and opens them abruptly when a phos flies right into his face.  
  
“Ok, ok, I understand! I’m awake, no falling asleep, I promise.”  
  
The phos flutters around his hand. _Come on_ it seems to say, _this way_. And Baekhyun follows its shaky glint, like he’s always done, even if he’s tired, hungry and bordering on desperate. He keeps walking, until suddenly he realizes the paths in front of his eyes are finally making sense again. The swan rock and the cave with six galleries, and then the canyon, where he got lost at the beginning of this journey. He keeps a shout of joy trapped in his throat, wary of Furies.  
  
“We really did it!” he whispers at the lights, and they jump proudly in front of his eyes. “We’re back on the Old Path again, and we should be close to...”  
  
He stops to listen and there it is, unmistakable. It’s the sound of water. Angry, vicious, dirty water, sloshing violently against its banks in a useless attempt to break free. It’s the song of the river, gloomy and harrowing, a liquid wail of rage and defeat. It’s a song Baekhyun knows very well.  
  
“The Cocytus!”  
  
The gallery ends abruptly and Baekhyun has to climb down on rough, tall steps, jumping from one block of stone to another until he can finally, _finally_ , see the shores of the Cocytus open in front of him, the water so dark it’s difficult to see when the river ends and the even darker walls of the canyon begin. But Baekhyun has never been happier to see the Cocytus in his life because beyond the river, on the other side of the massive, solid stone bridge, he can see the city of Pophos, clinging to the side of the mountain like a giant hive. The power station of the city burns with blue and red lights, offering a promise of warmth, light and safety and Baekhyun’s body shakes with relief. He’s almost there.  
  
The last few meters separating him from the bridge that crosses the river are the most careful. Many Harbingers die like this, only a few steps from the coveted destination, too blinded by the promise of safety to be aware of their surroundings. Furies don’t like to wander around the cities – they prefer to crawl in their holes in the thickest, deepest darkness – but Furies are also constantly, and desperately hungry. And Harbingers trying to get inside a city are easy preys.  
  
Baekhyun slows down, noticing with some worry that the phoi are increasing quickly. From four to five, six, ten, twenty. They light up like little stars against the black vault of the large cavern, tearing away the veil of darkness. Too many of them.  
  
There must be something waiting for him down there, and he’s already tired. He pushes himself up, his entire body is so heavy it feels weightless. He tells his legs to move and they shake from the effort, the muscles numb and rigid.  
  
_Come on legs, this is the final rush… Don’t give up on me now!_  
  
The river roars, covering his pants as he climbs down the last rocks towards the mouth of the bridge. From here, the bridge looks endless, all dark stones and tall pylons. Baekhyun has never seen them lit, but he knows that they can be turned on from inside the fortress. A safety measure, for when the Furies are so hungry they even try to assault the city. On the other side of the bridge, at the end, Baekhyun can see a sparkle. The golden doors of Pophos, safety. They’re so close. He takes a deep breath and lets adrenaline flood his veins, like liquid fire. He opens his eyes and starts running towards the mouth of the bridge.  
  
He doesn’t see the Fury in the beginning, just a glint of red at his left. He ducks, instinctively, and it’s like the last ten years he spent wandering around the maze had the only purpose of honing his reflexes for this moment. He feels the air moving where a few moments ago his head had been and he watches, in unreal, terrifying slow-motion, as long, crooked claws slice the air with a sharp swishing sound. He falls on his butt and immediately rolls on his back to avoid the monster’s claws trying to pierce through him again. They sink on the ground instead, cutting the stone with a terrible scraping noise. Before the Fury can extract them from the the stone, Baekhyun is already standing on his feet again and running towards the bridge, but the tail of the creature coils around his leg and drags him down, keeping him from running away.  
  
He cries as he’s dragged up in the air and thrown violently on the ground again, the pain so real it screams inside his head. When he looks up, his eyes widen. The monster uncoils its spires under the pale light of the phos. It has the eyes and the long tail of a snake culminating into the torso of a woman with the longest claws, long teeth, long hair and pale lips. When he looks into its eyes, he can feel his breath itch. He doesn’t know if it’s the same Lamia he met before, during the Darkest-Hour, but it doesn’t really matter. Just looking at it makes him want to crawl out of his skin. If he could, he’d get up and run, but he’s too tired and his body hurts too much.  
  
The Fury screams its victory, a terrible sound, like nails on iron, and the wail fills the entire cavern. Baekhyun winces and sends one last look at the city, at its fluctuating, intermittent lights. Crimson red and electric blue. Red and blue, red and blue. He was so close.  
  
The Lamia slithers towards him and raises him easily up in the air, as if Baekhyun is nothing more than a rag doll. To the monster, he is. It’s not as big as the one Yugyeom once talked about – but Yugyeom likes to exaggerate things to make himself look cooler – but it’s’s three times taller than Baekhyun and its skeleton hand has claws longer than his arms. The monster opens its mouth, a black hole, fraught with stained, sharp fangs. Baekhyun squirms in its hold, but he’s too weak.  
  
In the last moments, a phos lands on the tip of his nose. If it could talk, what would it tell Baekhyun? To give up? To keep fighting? It doesn’t matter anymore, but Chanyeol would tell him to keep fighting, Chanyeol… Chanyeol!  
  
_I promised, didn’t I? That I would come back alive?_  
  
He takes the dagger he keeps inside his pocket, the one he uses to write signals on the walls of the maze when he finds a nest, and plows it deep in the Lamia’s flesh. The scream the creature lets out is not louder, but a lot more terrifying than the previous one. But it also lets Baekhyun go and the boy lands heavily on the cold stone with a pained groan.  
  
He stays there, for a moment, his ears ringing, his body numb and paralyzed and his mind empty, while the Lamia cries, out of its mind with pain and rage. The cavern is swarming with phoi, so many that their light is almost blinding. But it’s not enough, _it’s not enough_. Their light can’t stop Furies, only the light of Pophos could, if only…  
  
Baekhyun fumbles with the necklace hidden under his clothes with clammy, clumsy fingers, until he finally gets a hold of the silver whistle at his neck. He takes it at his mouth and he whistles, high and loud, clear and sound. The sound echoes in the cavern, louder than the Fury’s shrieks, louder than the river, louder than everything else, cutting through the darkness like a silver blade. He whistles again, and again, and he stops only when the Lamia jumps towards him, huge and murderous.  
  
The bridge lights up before the monster can reach him. One after another, the tall pylons activate with a loud sound and a shower of sparks. The Lamia stops, blinded by the sudden light. Baekhyun closes his eyes and gets up, aware that he only has this one chance to save himself. Covering his eyes with his fingers, only peeking to see where he’s going, he starts limping towards the golden doors at the end of the bridge. He doesn’t stop, not even to regain his breath. The space dilates in front of his eyes and the usually short distance seems endless for a moment, but Baekhyun runs until he is at the gate and he can see the shadows of the guards on the towers.  
  
“Who’s there?” calls someone from the tallest post.  
  
“Harbinger Byun Baekhyun, sir,” he pants, coughing, trying to string the right words together. “I come back from Dakrya to deliver an urgent dispatch to the Sovereign Ruler of Pophos from the Metropolitan Government of Dakrya. I beg entrance to the city.”  
  
“Louder, we can’t hear you!”  
  
“Harbinger! Byun! Baekhyun! There’s a Fury there, and I can’t–”  
  
Before he can finish talking he sees a flashing light, followed by a sizzling sound and a loud rumble, like an explosion. When he turns around, there’s a lot of smoke and the Lamia has disappeared. The guardians of the city opened fire against it. For Baekhyun. Unbelievable. They must need this urgent dispatch really fucking bad.  
  
There’s a moment of deafening silence as the guard takes a good look at him.  
  
“Your identity has been confirmed. You have received permission to enter Pophos.”  
  


~

  
  
  
  


**28**

  
  
A crack of light filters through the golden doors when they part, investing Baekhyun in all its brightness. It hurts his eyes, too used to the dusk of the maze, but he still lets the light run over him even if it stings. He lets relief flood through him. The awareness that he did it, again, he survived yet another journey through the maze, settles down at the back of his throat, together with a lump of fear he didn’t know he was still holding. He feels like throwing up from the happiness. _Man, this one was close._ He’s still alive.  
  
He collapses inside, stepping over the border of the power field that keeps the city safe from Furies. He can feel the moment his body falls through the barrier, because it’s warmer, brighter, even the air feels lighter away from the almost solid darkness of the maze.  
  
A bang at his back wakes him up from his reverie. The doors are already closing. The phoi float lazily behind them, swarming at the entrance of the city. The barrier holds them up outside the city and they can’t follow Baekhyun inside. He won’t need them in Pophos, but that doesn’t mean he can simply let them go. His journey hasn’t ended yet, and it won’t end until he’s thanked them for their help. Yoona’s voice in his memories is stern, “Manners before everything else! Be grateful!”  
  
He turns around, vision still hazy, confused by the red and blue lights of the city, until he finds the tall guard pressing the button to close the doors. “Wait a moment, don’t close the door, I still have to pay my respects!” he shouts. The guard – he looks too tall and big to be doing this menial job, pulling a lever to close a door – stares back at him, a little confused. He looks at the door, and then at Baekhyun again, unsure.  
  
“Open the door,” Baekhyun repeats. “I’m not done here.” He doesn’t raise his voice and the guard just sends him an unimpressed look. Baekhyun is tired, angry and he’s just survived a Darkest-Hour and seven cycles in the maze. He summons his power and lets the silver in his eyes swirl, trying to . “Can you open the door now or do I have to curse you?”  
  
“Can you even do that?”  
  
“Do you want to try me?”  
  
The boy takes a step forward – and oh, shit, he’s tall and built, he doesn’t look like a simple guardian of the doors, he looks threatening and dangerous – but someone grabs him from the collar of his uniform and pushes him back before he can upset Baekhyun further. The guard opens his eyes and he groans. The Captain of the Guardians of the Golden Gates, Lee Donghae, lets the boy go and waves towards Baekhyun.  
  
“Byun Baekhyun, you have barely set foot in my city and you’re already bullying my new recruits,” he says, calm and pacific.  
  
“It’s not my fault if your officers are slacking off, Captain. They should’ve told the boy how to do his job properly.”  
  
“Be thankful to my officers, Byun, because they saved your little sorry ass today.”  
  
He snorts. “They only saved the documents, not me. Now, may I please ask you to open the door? You know I can’t leave the gate if I haven’t paid my respects and I’m in a hurry.”  
  
“Yes, you are late. I was already thinking you weren’t going to come at all.” Something flashes in his eyes, fleeting and unreadable, something that Baekhyun doesn’t know how to interpret. He clings to the childish hope that maybe the captain is relieved he made it alive, after all. Donghae gestures for the rookie guard to get up. “But we’ll talk about that later. Open the doors, Seo Youngho, and make sure they stay open until he’s done. And you,” he tells the other guards, who were staring at the scene curiously, “at the cannon. In case that Fury decides to come back.”  
  
The boy, Youngho, bows in front of Baekhyun, too cocky for someone who just got scolded, and then rushes to the controls of the doors. Baekhyun watches him walk away, feeling a little confused. The boy was not afraid of him. People in Dakrya hate Harbingers and call them bad omens, messengers of doom, wretches, but in Pophos the worst Baekhyun is used to receive is a terror so blatant it’s almost comical. But Seo Youngho looked more surprised than scared. The way he looked at Baekhyun, like he was studying him, was annoying.  
  
He waits for the golden gates to open again and he walks in front of them, stopping at the edge between the city and the maze, his feet stepping on the magical barrier that surrounds Pophos until he can feel its power surging through him. _Breathe,_ he reminds himself, _you’re safe here._  
  
The phoi drift in front of him, hanging weightless in the air. He falls on his knees and bows deeply until his forehead is touching the cold ground.  
  
“Thank you for bringing me home safely.”  
  
It’s the cue for the phoi to scatter and fade away slowly, like dying stars, in the darkness of the maze.  
  
“What is he doing, Captain?” he hears another guard asking.  
  
“Paying respects. He’s thanking the lights for leading him safely through the Maze.”  
  
Youngho ignores the exchange. He just keeps looking towards the doors, where Baekhyun is bowing so deep his back hurts. But Seo Youngho can’t understand. None of them can understand because none of them can see the phoi. Only Baekhyun can. He can see them and talk to them and call them, if he wants. That’s why he’s a Harbinger and Seo Youngho is not. That’s why he can walk through the maze and Lee Donghae cannot. That’s why he’s different from everyone in this city.  
  
Baekhyun closes his eyes and summons his power. When he opens them again, a slither of silver is growing in his brown pupils. The crescent moon, symbol of the Harbingers. Their curse and blessing. The mark of those who walk in the maze. The mark of those who can see the light even in the deepest darkness.  
  
  
  


~

  
  
  
  
The silver mark in Baekhyun’s eyes is a moon scythe. That’s what Baekhyun has always been told.  
  
No one in the Netherworld has actually ever seen the moon, but it still belong in their legends and in their bedtime stories. They don’t like it though. They wear the sun on their skin – traced carefully in ink or, even better, with a blade, because scars don’t fade. They wear the sun against their skin – in iron or silver medallions, gold if you’re among the luckiest. The sun is carved above their doors and on the walls of their temples and hand-drawn by kids on the streets (not quite a memory, but a promise to retake the surface again, someday.) But the moon… The moon only lives inside old stories and in the eyes of the Harbingers, like a warning. Like a curse.  
  
“Waning moon,” said the Weeper of the Klæin who came to take Baekhyun away the day his eyes flashed silver for the first time. “It’s going to disappear soon. You know what it means, kid? You don’t have much left to live.”  
  
“I don’t have… much left to live?”  
  
Even now, Baekhyun doesn’t remember much of that Weeper. He thinks he might have had runes drawn on the hollow of his face, dark and ominous on his bony cheeks, and that maybe he smelled foul, like mold and rotten things and like most of the Weepers, but he can’t say for sure. But he hasn’t forgotten the ugly smirk marring his face like a scar. He still sees it in the face of every Weeper he meets. No matter where he goes, he brings the words of that man with himself, wadded up and tucked at the back of his mind.  
  
“See, the light in your eyes is like a countdown, it’ll become smaller and smaller every day, until it’ll go dark and you’ll die.”  
  
Baekhyun’s eyes had widened. He was fourteen, thin and short. Hungry and covered in coal like most the boys in Dakrya. And terrified. His life was horrible, but he didn’t want to die.  
  
The man had laughed. “Oh, don’t look at me like that, impudent brat. You must have done something horrible in your other life, to deserve to die young.”  
  
How long has it been, since that day? Almost ten years. That priest is already dead. People don’t live long in Dakrya, Harbinger or not. The fine dust gnaws at your lungs, the hunger gnaws at your belly and the darkness gnaws at your heart until you give up. That man must have given up a long time ago. But Baekhyun didn’t, no matter how many times he wanted to.  
  
Waning moon, whisper the people of the Netherworld when they see the scythe of silver in the eyes of a Harbinger. Waning moon, crack the old pages of the books of the Klæin, a bad omen, and the Weepers stare maliciously at Baekhyun when he walks in front of the Temple, because he bears the curse of the moon, because he is impure and dirty. Waning moon, croons the Hiereus, from his tall silver bench, his expression indecipherable behind the mask. Waning moon, which means Baekhyun will die young.  
  
“Your eyes are so pretty,” says Chanyeol the second or maybe the third time they meet. He tilts Baekhyun’s head upwards and looks closer, studying Baekhyun’s eyes.  
  
“They’re not pretty,” says Baekhyun, with the thinnest voice he can manage.  
  
“Oh, they are.” Chanyeol looks at him with wide eyes, mesmerized. “There’s silver in them, can’t you see? They’re so precious.”  
  
“It’s a waning moon. It means I’ll die young,” says Baekhyun with a frown.  
  
Chanyeol laughs, a deep, booming sound that bounces on the walls of the well and comes back multiplied, as if one hundred Chanyeols were laughing at Baekhyun. “Who told you something that stupid?”  
  
Baekhyun doesn’t even know what he’s holding his breath for, if it’s for Chanyeol’s words, his smile, his entire existence. He just stands there, panting harshly, fifteen years old and scared and covered in dirt and darkness, his eyes brilliant in the eternal night of the maze. Starstruck. He’s never even seen a star, not once in his life, but he’s sure this is the feeling he would feel when presented with something so big, so bright, so impossible to ignore once you see it. This is what the scientist he read about in the Klæin, that Copernicus, must have felt when he realized that the entire sky doesn’t revolve around us, but we’re the ones revolving around our personal star in a perfect, perpetual motion.  
  
(Chanyeol looks at him.  
  
“It’s not a waning moon. Can’t you see? It’s the sun. You’ve got a sun in your eyes. The moon is just covering it. It’s an eclipse.”)  
  
It’s a revolution.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
_Light breaks on secret lots,  
On tips of thought where thoughts smell in the rain;  
When logics dies,  
The secret of the soil grows through the eye,  
And blood jumps in the sun;  
Above the waste allotments the dawn halts._  
  
Light breaks where no sun shines  
— Dylan Thomas  
  



	2. i. regret / πόθος

  
_O crescent of a waning moon  
you that shine on the deserted waters,  
o silver crescent, what harvest of dreams wavers  
in your pale glow down here!  
  
Short breaths of leaves  
of flowers, ripples from the woods  
go forth to the sea, no song, no cry  
no sound goes through the vast silence._  
  
  
  
According to the law of Dakrya, Harbingers are not allowed to own anything. Not the clothes they wear, not the bed where they sleep, not the name they were given at birth. Not even their life. From the moment the mark of the moon appears on their eyes, they belong to the city, and you can’t really own anything when you are something to be owned yourself.  
  
_Possessions,_ proclaims the Hiereus, _are a hinder. We come into this world bearing nothing but our sins and we will leave it bearing nothing but our sins, so we must live our life with nothing but our sins._  
  
It’s the word of the Klæin and the word of the Klæin used to be all Baekhyun knew, all he had ever known, his only way to discern good from bad, right from wrong, life from death.  
  
Baekhyun’s family was a poor one, the widow of a miner and her two sons, both future miners, poor and dirty and, somehow, carefree. Before Baekbom, her oldest, became a Harbinger, the Byun widow was a fervent follower of the Klæin. She was a hard-willed, tenacious woman who worked three jobs in order to feed her sons and never forgot to take them to the Temple at least once every month. They watched the function together and when they came back home she bought them a sweet corn cake. It was nice. It was all Baekhyun needed to be happy.  
  
Then suddenly, one day, Baekbom’s eyes flashed silver and the Weepers came to take him away. Baekhyun’s mother stopped going to the functions. Her eyes became hard and dark like the stone around Dakrya, once pretty and young and full of hopes, like an heiress waiting for a good marriage, rich in crystal and precious stones, with gold glowing in her veins – in the veins of the mountain and in the hands of the people working there. That time is long gone, and the smile in Byun widow’s face disappeared too, gone with her eldest son.  
  
When Baekhyun was chosen by the moon (Yoona said it was a call, but everyone else called it a curse), the Weepers took him to the dungeons under the temple, in the labyrinth of corridors spread like cobwebs under Dakrya. Baekhyun was only fourteen, scared and confused. He kept hoping it was all a mistake. Wasn’t he too old to be a Harbinger? Oh, but his brother had been old too when the moon had chosen him. The attendants of the temple put a silver cuff on his ankle, to keep him from running away, and a silver tag at his neck. They told him to wait. Baekhyun didn’t know how to read, so he waited, hoping that someone would tell him what the signs on the tag meant. He waited for a long time.  
  
“It says _pais,_ “ said finally a young girl, maybe sixteen, maybe eighteen, maybe twenty years old, her eyes clear and silver, her hair like pale gold turning pink under the purple light of the magic fires. “It means child. Hatchling. I’m Yoona, your mentor. What’s your name, child?”  
  
She was beautiful and intimidating. Somehow, in his mind, Baekhyun had always thought all Harbingers were children. She laughed when he told her, a sour laugh. It wouldn’t take him long to realize Harbingers are young because they never grow up to become adults, (because they simply don’t last long enough,) but back in that time he didn’t know anything. He just thought she looked too old to be a Harbinger, and yet she looked so young. So pretty.  
  
“Baekhyun. My name is Baekhyun,” he answered, a drawn out stutter.  
  
“Well, don’t forget it. Don’t forget your name. No one is allowed to call you that until your First Flight, when you’ll prove you’re ready to be a Harbinger. Until then, you’ll be a _pais_ , a child of the temple, and nothing more.” She looked apologetic. “I’m sorry, it’s the rule. But don’t worry, if you’re lucky, the phoi will love you. You will survive your First Flight and the Weepers will give you your name back. But don’t forget your name or you’ll forget yourself.”  
  
It was stupid. So stupid. How could someone be stripped of their own name? Even if people weren’t allowed to call him that, wasn’t he still Baekhyun?  
  
He wasn’t ready to lose his name, but he did and, when it happened, he almost lost himself too. Everything that was him, everything that had been Baekhyun, the carefree child who ran barefoot on the dirty streets of Dakrya, feeling like he was the king of the city just because he could climb taller, laugh louder, hit harder than the other puny kids of the neighborhood, was taken away from him. They gave him rules instead, and punishments when the rules were broken, and a grey vest that was too tight and short for his growth spurt, standard measures for everyone, standard answers, standard attitude, keep your head low and, for the sake of the Unseen, _do not stand out._ They taught him how to read, how to count, how to write maps. “But you’re only borrowing our knowledge,” said the teacher in his baritone voice, walking back and forth from Baekhyun’s desk to the blackboard. “It’s not yours, it’s ours.” And what they really meant was _you’re ours._  
  
But wasn’t it ironic that Harbingers couldn’t own knowledge, couldn’t own names, couldn’t own feelings, let alone material things, when the temple was amassing wealth in its dungeons? When the Despotes lived in a palace of black crystal and marble, surrounded by the most precious stones in the world? When the Weepers stole kids from their families and stored them in their dungeons, tagged them like livestock, treated them like things rather than people?  
  
Baekhyun frowned and bit his tongue, fourteen years old and clinging to his anger because it was his own and they couldn’t take it away from him. He stopped biting his tongue eventually, because after anger came defiance and that, too, was his own.  
  
“If owning something is wrong, why do you own us?”  
  
He received twenty-five lashes for his impudence when he uttered those words during a class, and another five for the way he laughed at the man who was whipping him. He would’ve gotten some more if it hadn’t been for Yoona.  
  
“You’re an idiot, do you want to die?” she said later, while she patched him up.  
  
“It’s not fair. You know it’s not fair.”  
  
She had looked at him, her usual smile lost in the nervous line of her lips pressed together. She had took a finger to her mouth. _Sssh,_ she seemed to say, _they might be listening. They’re always listening._  
  
He didn’t ask her to say his name and she didn’t say it – not out loud, at least, but she mouthed it, a voiceless call. _Baekhyun._ She hadn’t forgotten. Baekhyun breathed. Baekhyun. He was still Baekhyun, in his own mind and in hers.  
  
Later, he asked her, in the tiniest voice he could muster. “Does it get better?”  
  
She hesitated. “It does. They need us. Not the Weepers, the Weepers care nothing about trades and alliances with the other Buried Cities, but the Despotes does. And we’re the only ones who can get through the maze. No Harbingers, no trade. No Harbingers, no Alliance. No Harbingers, nothing but these walls and a dead mine. They need us, Baekhyun.”  
  
Baekhyun didn’t want to be needed. He didn’t want to be whipped. He didn’t want to die. He wanted to go home. Yoona hugged him again and let him take a bite of her sweet corn cake, Harbinger privilege.  
  
“You just have to resist until your First Flight, and then you have to persevere. Be faster, stronger, braver than the others. They want you to be disposable? Make yourself indispensable. Find your worth and make it your own, so you can brandish it like a weapon against them. And, if nothing works, just remember something. We can run away. They can’t. There’s an entire world outside those gates, and it’s a terrible world, but it’s a world where they can’t reach you. We’re all trapped down here, but our prison at least is bigger.”  
  
Wise words, said by a wise mentor. Baekhyun will never be a wise mentor, not like Yoona has been for him, but he will try, in his own way.  
  
According to the law of Dakrya, a Harbinger is not allowed to own anything. Possessions, says the Hiereus, are nothing but a hinder.  
  
“Nonsense,” will say Baekhyun to Yerim ten years later. Little Yerim, so young, so scared, she’s just a _pais_ and she cries at night because no one calls her name and she’s afraid she’ll end up forgetting it. When it happens, if Baekhyun is there with her, he takes her hand and hides his face in her pale, blonde locks – she believes Baekhyun when he tells her they’re strawberry blonde, even if she has never seen a strawberry, and neither has he – and whispers, softly, “Yerim, Yerim, Yerim.”  
  
“Sssh, they will hear you,” she murmurs, terrified, and so _so_ relieved.  
  
And what if they hear him? What can they do, to Byun Baekhyun, that the maze has not already tried to do to him? Tried and failed, for Baekhyun is still here, ten years later, too old to be a Harbinger, to believe in legends, too old to be afraid.  
  
“Who cares if they hear. It’s all lies written in a book many years ago,” he says, defiant.  
  
“How do you know they’re lies? How do you know this isn’t a punishment for our sins like the Hiereus says?” she asks. She’s pointing to her big, dark eyes, mottled silver and white like the wings of a butterfly, but she’s also talking about her life, about dark cells and silver tags and the ghost of the maze she has never seen – not yet – but still haunts her dreams.  
  
“How do I know it’s all lies, you say?” He pats her head. “I can’t tell you. It’s a secret.”  
  
She doesn’t need to know. She believes him anyway.  
  
Baekhyun doesn’t own many things. A map of the maze, not the old copy he keeps submitting to the temple whenever they ask him, but a real map, like Yoona’s, a map that belongs only to him, hidden in his memory. A silver whistle he received from the Despotes of Dakrya. A secret. Two names. His own, from the moments he fell, tripping on his own blood, face down in a cavern, among the ruins of an old city, in front of a boy with black hair, black eyes and a dimple. A boy who asked him, “What’s your name?”  
  
“I… Baekhyun.”  
  
“Baekhyun,” had said the boy, and it was the first time someone had said that name out loud in more than a year, since Baekhyun had entered the temple. “I’m Chanyeol. I come from the Overworld.”  
  
A map, a silver whistle, two names and a secret.  
  
That’s all Baekhyun has.  
  
That’s all Baekhyun needs.  
  
  
  


i. regret / πόθος

  
  
  


**29**

  
  
Butterflies. White and blue and mottled gold, their wings shuddering like dying flames. Pophos’ lights look like butterflies. Electric butterflies, fire butterflies, waiting for a moth to burn against their heat.  
  
Unlike most Buried Cities, Pophos is clean, warm and dry. Baekhyun has not visited many of the cities of the Alliance. He’s been in Aganaktein, his previous jurisdiction, and then there was that single, urgent dispatch for Metameleya, on one of the deepest levels, close to the Frozen Pass, three years ago. They were both filthy and dark just like Dakrya, his hometown. Cities made of clay, dirt and hunger, of pale, extended hands and big, black eyes. Made of darkness, buried in darkness, like forgotten arks full of humanity and loneliness.  
  
But Pophos is different. Pretty, with straight, wide streets and colorful lights like alien butterflies, shining everywhere, red and blue and yellow, oversaturated, aggressive and constantly blinking on and off at the farthest corner of Baekhyun’s eye field.  
  
When Baekhyun visited Pophos for the first time and saw the whirlwind of bright colors, he thought there was some celebration going on. He couldn’t imagine a place that looked so bright and lively all the time. It seemed like an insult to the maze. (An insult to the god of the Klæin, perhaps, but he soon found out that the Weepers are much more agreeable in Pophos than in Dakrya, and they’re willing to close an eye, or both, if enough money is involved. The god of the Klæin, the Unseen, is, after all, also the god of wealth, The-Rich-One.)  
  
It took Baekhyun some time to get used to this city’s lights, to their constant edge, their immobile and eternal cheerfulness, flashing back and forth, bait and switch. A fabricated illusion. A golden façade to hide the rotten world of brothels and gambling dens, of pollution and corruption that keeps the city alive.  
  
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Lee Donghae gestures for Baekhyun to take the chair when he enters the room, but the boy ignores him, lured by the big window instead. “It’s very different from Dakrya, I’ve heard.”  
  
“You did?” says Baekhyun, tilting his head to look at the captain. Lee Donghae is the oldest and more reliable nephew of the Ruler of Pophos. He’s also the one, some people say, who will sit on the throne after the death of his grandfather. Some rumors say he’s ruthless, a cold-blooded politician who only thinks about his own profit, but Baekhyun doesn’t believe the rumors. (More like he doesn’t care about the rumors.) The only thing Baekhyun knows is that Lee Donghae has been Guardian of the Golden Gates of Pophos for years and he’s seen many Harbingers come and go, leave and sometimes never come back. He’s one of the few people who would take the time to talk to them, and that alone is enough to win Baekhyun’s respect. That, and he’s a friend of Kyungsoo, so Baekhyun at least tries to be nice to him. “You’re right. Dakrya is really dark compared to Pophos. As you well know, we don’t have the luxury of a power line.”  
  
He traces Pophos’ lights on the glass with his fingers, trying to follow the bright line that, starting from the power station, like a river spreads its branches everywhere in the city, bringing warmth, light and safety. He tries, but his fingers shake, uncooperative, refusing to follow his orders. He doesn’t know if he’s shivering, or if maybe the world is shaking. Maybe both are true.  
  
“How does it look like? I can’t even imagine it,” asks Donghae, staring at the show of lights reflected on the glass.  
  
“When you look outside, you see... You can’t really see anything. Too dark.”  
  
Baekhyun can’t see anything here, either. He’s so tired and his eyes keep blinking in and out of focus, making everything look hazy. On the top of the mountain, the Palace of the Ruler and the Temple of the Klæin are just shaky flames, dancing bright red against the black vault of the cave surrounding the city. Reality is slipping away, turning into a lucid dream. Only the electric blue light of the power station is unmistakable. It pulses, far away, unreachable, like a giant heart, pumping electricity into the vein of Pophos at a crazy, hysterical rhythm. Tum tum tum tum tum, it echoes in Baekhyun’s head.  
  
“I can’t imagine how it must be, without electricity,” says Donghae.  
  
The hydroelectric power station is Pophos’ only source of energy, its jewel and pride. Not many cities have the kind of resources necessary to produce electric light, as far as Baekhyun knows.  
  
Dakrya certainly doesn’t. Before Baekhyun was born, every family could afford a magic fire or too, but now that most of the mines are empty and unproductive, owning a magic fire has become a privilege reserved only to the Despotes, the members of the Council and the Temple. The rest of the city lives in a world-in-between, in the half-light.  
  
But cities like Pophos, exploiting the power of the river, and Lype, latching onto an underground volcano to fuel its thermo-electric power station, are warm and bright and clean. They’re good places to live.  
  
And yet.  
  
(Baekhyun would still choose Dakrya over Pophos in a heartbeat. Dakrya is gritty, cold and dark, but it’s honest. Dakrya is cruel, but it never tells lies. Just like the maze.)  
  
Baekhyun closes his eyes and rubs his temples. Fatigue enlightens his senses, making the magic in his eyes react to the tiniest power surges around him. He can feel energy buzzing inside the walls, exploding in the glass cage of the light bulb, humming lowly outside, in the streets. It’s like the entire city is shuddering, swarming with power, and all that power is being channeled through his body, leaving him damaged and frayed at the edges.  
  
The clink of the tray on the wooden desk startles him and he loses the thread of his thoughts.  
  
“Come on,” says Donghae, “eat.”  
  
“Not hungry,” he mutters. It’s not the truth, but it’s not a lie either. His mind keeps replaying the events of the last hour, a chase of memories behind closed eyelids. His hands shake against the glass, legs twitching with the ghost of the instinct to run, run _run_ away from the Lamia.  
  
“Still a little shaken, aren’t you?”  
  
A little shaken? What an understatement. Baekhyun wants to snort but nothing comes out. Nausea builds in his stomach. His lungs are too big for his chest and his brain is too big for his skull. In a moment of desperation so acute and bitter it tastes like clarity, he tries to summon the phoi, because their light always manages to make him feel safe. Then, he realizes he’s in Pophos, on the wrong side of the barrier. The phoi cannot enter the city.  
  
“Baekhyun,” insists the man, unaware of the panic attack gurgling in Baekhyun’s chest. “Harbinger Byun Baekhyun from Dakrya, you have to eat. I can’t have you collapsing on my watch. Your Despotes would actually find a way to cross the maze and come here to get my head if something were to happen to you. He seems to care a lot about your wellbeing.”  
  
That’s debatable, but Baekhyun doesn’t voice his thoughts, nor does he leave the window. From this great distance, distorted by the stained glass, the lights of Pophos look a little like the glow of phoi, especially if he looks at them with his eyes half-closed, through the curtain of his long lashes. The thought grounds him, even more in wake of the inner breakdown he’s facing, but he doesn’t know how to explain it to Donghae. It’s not like the captain would be able to agree with him. He can’t see phoi.  
  
Donghae suddenly frowns. “How long were you out there?”  
  
A question. Questions are good. Baekhyun can work with questions. Anything that distracts him from the throbbing energy of Pophos’ lights, so similar to the lights of the maze and yet cruelly different.  
  
“I left Dakrya maybe... Seven cycles ago?” He looks at the clock hanging on the wall, because it’s easier to focus on details when everything else is swimming past him. “One hundred and fifty hours, more or less.”  
  
“And I guess you haven’t slept all this time?”  
  
Baekhyun’s laugh is dry. “I wouldn’t be here otherwise. But don’t worry about me. I’m a Harbinger. We’re used to it.”  
  
Donghae sighs. “The Sovereign Ruler was waiting for those documents two cycles ago.”  
  
Well, the Sovereign Ruler could’ve come to retrieve the documents in the Maze during the Darkest-Hour if he wanted them so bad. Baekhyun doesn’t say anything, but Donghae can imagine his thoughts and shoots him a warning glare.  
  
“Can I go now? I have to bring this urgent dispatch to the Ruler as soon as possible. And I must also visit the Temple of Pophos, I have a missive for them too.”  
  
He tries to get up, but his legs shake and the world spins around him. Donghae barely catches him before he falls on the soft carpet. “No, no. I will send one of my men to the temple with the documents. I’m sure the reply will be an urgent dispatch as well and they’ll want you to leave immediately, but in these conditions...”  
  
In these conditions, Baekhyun will most likely die as soon as he sets foot outside Pophos. Donghae’s concern is admirable, but unneeded.  
  
“You can’t. There will be consequences.” Baekhyun’s head spin and the words trip on his tongue and catch against the roof of his mouth, sticky and cumbersome. “You know this is not ordinary mail… I am supposed to personally deliver it to the Deacon of the Temple of Pophos! I could be skinned alive for this…”  
  
He tries to get up, but the captain pushes him down again.  
  
“Don’t be dramatic, Harbinger. No one can touch you. Not in Pophos at least. And not in Dakrya either. From what I know, the Despotes has a great need of people like you. You’re far more important than you think. And I don’t know what the law in Dakrya is like, but I’m sure your Weepers wouldn’t kill their best Harbinger out of a whim either.”  
  
_That’s because you don’t know them,_ thinks Baekhyun, with a cold shiver.  
  
He doesn’t think this golden captain, in his golden armor, guarding the golden doors of his city with trees, flowers and electric power, would understand how things work where Baekhyun came from, in a place so dark and wrecked and full of misery that the only way to survive is to believe in something higher. Pophos’ religion is money, but Dakrya’s religion has always been the Klæin, and that gives the Hiereus, the chief of the Temple, a power that could probably rival the one of the Despotes.  
  
The Despotes controls the army and the mines, and thus he controls the production of magic fires, but the Temple controls the barrier that keeps the city safe and the minds of the people. The Temple also controls the Harbingers, and if the Hiereus decides to dispose of Baekhyun, not even the Despotes would be able to stop him.  
  
“It doesn’t matter. It’s my duty and I’ll do it.” He tries to get up again, a feeble attempt, but Donghae pushes him down one last time.  
  
“I’ll take responsibility and go myself if you’re this worried,” he says, and this time Baekhyun is too weak to reply. “I’m the Ruler’s nephew, it won’t be a problem for me.”  
  
Baekhyun purses his lips. The procedure, they should be following the procedure. Donghae sends him a warning glare before he can say anything else.  
  
“Try to get some rest, Byun Baekhyun. It looks like you’ll need it. I’ll have Youngho escorting you to one of the resting rooms.”  
  
“Seo Youngho? The boy from before?” he asks, feeling a little more awake now that his curiosity has been piqued. “He’s new, right? He wasn’t here the other times.”  
  
“Yes, he started only a few days ago.”  
  
“Where does he come from? To be honest, he didn’t look like a rookie guard.” More like a soldier.  
  
“He used to be part of the personal guard of the ruler,” says Donghae, a little reluctant to share that information, “but I can’t see how that is your business.”  
  
The personal guard of the ruler? And what is Donghae doing taking one of his uncle’s men under his wing? Unless he’s always been one of Donghae’s men since the beginning. Donghae’s eyes tell him to drop the topic and Baekhyun does it. Let Pophos’ politicians settle Pophos’ politics. He has no interest in knowing whether Seo Youngho is spying on Donghae for the Ruler, or whether he had been spying on the Ruler for Donghae before.  
  
“It is my business, considering you just appointed him as my babysitter for the next few hours. Since when do I need a bodyguard?”  
  
“I just want him to familiarize with Harbingers since he’ll work at the doors from now on. I’m sure you will be a great help for him.”  
  
Baekhyun snorts. The last thing he needs is a guardian. He’s survived ten years in the maze without one, and the maze is a completely different league compared to the rich neighborhoods of Pophos. The mere thought of comparing the two is ludicrous, just like the idea of giving Baekhyun a bodyguard. What could ever happen to him in Pophos?  
  
“Don’t be so hard on Youngho. He’s a good kid. And he volunteered for the job.”  
  
Oh, this is even more ridiculous than Baekhyun needing a bodyguard. “He volunteered, really? He doesn’t think I bring bad luck and misfortune wherever I go? Is he not afraid of the maze?”  
  
“He’s afraid of the maze, sure, like everyone is, but he also respects you, because you can go out there and not die.”  
  
“Harbingers die all the time in the maze,” says Baekhyun drily.  
  
“Not all the time. Not this time. You survived this time. And the time before. You’ve survived for a long time. Loved by the phoi, right?” His voice is soft and his eyes unreadable.  
  
“And hated by everyone else. Isn’t that a great joke?”  
  
It’s a bit unfair. Donghae doesn’t hate Baekhyun and Youngho probably doesn’t hate him either, but Baekhyun is angry, so angry, and tired. His hands shake and he’s barely graced by the thought that he should stop, before he says something he regrets.  
  
“People are just scared, Baekhyun. We’re human, nothing less and nothing more. We are afraid of things we can’t understand. Not knowing what’s out there forces us to be afraid of the unknown and that’s worse than being afraid of a real danger.”  
  
“The fear of the unknown?” Baekhyun laughs, but he doesn’t smile. Some days, he would give up everything in order to have that kind of blissful ignorance. “Trust me, no matter how endless and original your imagination is, it can’t be worse of some things I’ve seen out there.” Things so horrible he wouldn’t be able to forget them in a thousand years. The unknown, in comparison, feels like a blessing.  
  
“Keep living in your little bubble of happiness, Captain. Cling to the walls of your pretty city, to light and warmth, if you really think you know what light and warmth are. Cling to what you know and, since you can, cling to what you don’t know. Be thankful that you don’t know anything.”  
  
Donghae’s eyes narrow and a shadow crosses his face. Oh, this time Baekhyun hit a nerve.  
  
“This brings back a lot of memories… Another Harbinger said the same thing to me, years ago,” he says, looking away with a palpable, intense sadness. “But I’m afraid you’re right, these letters must be delivered and I’ll do it personally. You should go to sleep, for the moment. You’ll probably be asked to leave soon. I’ll call Youngho, so that he can take you to your room.”  
  
He runs away from the stinging pain of this conversation, leaving Baekhyun alone with a faint sense of guilt and a mute question on the tip of his tongue, a question Baekhyun has always wanted to ask in the last three years, since the first time they met – a question about the Harbinger Lee Donghae loved. Baekhyun will probably never find the courage to bring up this topic again, and maybe it’s for the better. That person is dead by now.  
  
The life of a Harbinger isn’t long. Sometimes they get lost, sometimes they’re killed. Sometimes they simply give up. Sometimes, the phoi give up on them. Sometimes, they simply make the right choice.  
  


~

  
  
  
  


**02**

  
  
His name was Hyukjae and he belonged to a generation of Harbingers Baekhyun never got to know in person, a generation of Harbingers who had already died when Baekhyun became one. He never even met them, but he came to know their names, their deeds, their stories, because Yoona told them to him.  
  
Yoona was probably the last of them, the last of her generation. Maybe that’s why she decided to break the law of Dakrya, of the Klæin and of the maze, the law that forbids to speak the name of fallen Harbingers, dooming them to oblivion even in death.  
  
_Damnatio memoriae._ Words Baekhyun doesn’t understand. It means being erased by history, so that no one will ever remember your existence. That’s the destiny of all Harbingers, to fade into darkness, not just to be forgotten but to have never existed.  
  
Yoona didn’t want to let that happen. Maybe she thought it was her duty. Harbingers are messengers, the only ones this world has, and that’s all they can do. They deliver messages. And this was her message, to Baekhyun.  
  
“Even if no one else cares, I do. So listen well, Baekhyun, and learn the names of those who came before you,” she said. “Don’t let them be forgotten.”  
  
That’s how Baekhyun came to know about Heechul from Lype, who lost his soul to the Furies, Taeyeon from Metameleya, killed by her own city when she refused to do her job, Jeongsu from the city of Algedon, who led the last attempt of a military expedition in the maze. Hyukjae, from Pophos, the last Harbinger Pophos ever had, who loved the Guardian of the Golden Doors Lee Donghae – who was loved by the Guardian of the Golden Doors Lee Donghae.  
  
Baekhyun doesn’t forget about them. He tells their names to Yerim, sometimes, because someone must remember. (Because the temple stole their names during their life but also in death. Because they were cursed, sinners, freaks, and their names must be forgotten, their existence deleted from the world, but it’s not fair. It’s. Not. Fair.)  
  
Baekhyun also tells Yerim about his generation, Myungsoo and Soojung who died together during the same Darkest-hour, Kikwang whose body was never found, Seunghyun from Eleos who rescued three children who had run away from the city through a hole in the walls. They came back safely, he didn’t.  
  
“Why do I need to know about them?” says Yerim. “I’m tired. I already have so much to study.”  
  
“Because, if you don’t, who will? If you don’t know their names, why would your _pais_ want to remember yours, after you’ll be dead? Don’t you want to be remembered?”  
  
She grimaces, because she doesn’t want to think about death. She’s young, she’s never seen the maze. Only after her First Flight, she’ll realize death is any Harbinger’s most faithful companion, and this is something not even Baekhyun can teach her. Only experience will.  
  
“Just remember their names, Yerim.”  
  
He hopes she’ll do the same for him. Maybe she’ll tell her _pais_ about Baekhyun, the last of his generation, who couldn’t die. Byun Baekhyun, who survived for ten years in the maze, long after he was due, because he had made a promise to a demon.  
  
Except Yerim doesn’t know that. She can’t ever know. Chanyeol is a dangerous secret Baekhyun can’t share with anyone. A secret he sometimes wants to tell everyone.  
  
There are secrets you can’t take with yourself to the grave, secrets so big they deserve to be shared, even if they shouldn’t. Baekhyun thinks his love for Chanyeol is one of those secrets, so bright that it cannot be buried. He hopes it will explode someday, like fire in the sky, even if Baekhyun won’t be there to watch the show.  
  
Hyukjae’s secret was like that, one of those secrets that refuse to disappear with his owner. It burned, even after Hyukjae’s death. It lured Baekhyun in, flame and naïve moth.  
  
“Can you tell me about Hyukjae, the Harbinger from Pophos?”  
  
Yoona had looked up, confused, for a moment. “Again? I’ve already told you his story countless times.”  
  
Baekhyun shrugged. “It’s just… It’s so strange to me… The idea… That a Harbinger could love someone. That someone could love them back. I mean, isn’t it forbidden in Pophos? It is forbidden in Dakrya, as much as I know.”  
  
“Well, it’s not exactly forbidden, but…” But it’s impossible. Because, in Dakrya, Harbingers are outcasts, cursed, living at the edge between civilization and hell, forced to travel back and forth among monsters in a world made of danger and darkness. People curse at them. People think their silver eyes bring bad luck. People hate them.  
  
“I think it’s a lie, they weren’t really in love.”  
  
Yoona pouted. “You’re too young to know what love feels like.”  
  
“Why? Have you ever loved? Have you ever been loved? What do you know more than me?”  
  
Baekhyun didn’t want to be mean, but sometimes he didn’t know how not to be mean. Sometimes, Yoona was worse than him.  
  
“Maybe I never knew love myself, but I knew Hyukjae. And I can assure you that what I saw in his eyes, whatever it was, was stronger and bigger and brighter than anything else I’ve ever seen, even stronger than the curse of the moon.”  
  
There was silence, as Baekhyun thought about it and as Yoona collected her memories and tucked them safely away inside her mind.  
  
“I was jealous,” she said, when Baekhyun thought she had let the topic drop. “We all were. None of us ever had that kind of luck. There was a moment when I thought… But it wasn’t love? I’m not sure. That person died before it could become something more… I know now, that I will die without knowing what love really is. But I don’t care. When I think about it, I don’t know who will really have it worse.”  
  
“What do you mean?”  
  
Yoona was pretty, in Baekhyun’s opinion, one of the prettiest girls he had ever seen. Like an angel. To think that she would die without love was a crime. If there really was a god, the god of the Klæin, the Unseen, the One-of-many-names, the Rich-One, he was a cruel, cruel god for depriving such a beautiful girl of love.  
  
“Because at least I will die not knowing what I have lost. I can try to imagine it, but I’ll never know. And I can’t miss something I’ve never known. But Hyukjae knew about love. And he died. And he probably regretted dying so much more than I will.” Her eyes became sad. “Or maybe he didn’t regret it at all, after all.”  
  
“How did he die?” asked Baekhyun, with that morbid curiosity that belongs to children and lonely people.  
  
“In the most honorable and noble way, Baekhyun. He saved someone else’s life. He saved the life of the one he loved.”  
  


~

  
  
  
  


**30**

  
  
There are sixteen light bulbs in the corridor. Baekhyun tries not to look at them directly, but he can count them looking at the way the light expands and contracts on the tiled floor. One, two, three, forty-five. Something doesn’t add up, but it doesn’t matter. Baekhyun has never been good with numbers. (Numbers are doomed to oblivion, anyway, just like everything else.)  
  
“Do you need help?” asks Youngho, deadpan and tall and a little scary.  
  
“No,” replies Baekhyun, as bluntly as he can. Youngho only looks at him, a brow furrowed, completely unconvinced by Baekhyun’s refusal. He even half-smirks.  
  
“If you say so,” he answers.  
  
“Yes, I say so,” he snaps.  
  
Oh, this time Youngho smirks, fair and square. “Aren’t you a stubborn little thing?”  
  
Baekhyun feels a pang of annoyance prickle his chest. Everything is shaking and he would really need this boy’s help, but he would rather crawl than ask for it.  
  
“Just remember that the captain told me to take care of you, so you either walk to your room on your own legs or I’ll carry you there, with or without your permission.”  
  
“I’ll bite you,” he hisses, and Youngho chuckles. Arrogant brat.  
  
One, two, three, six, Baekhyun counts the light bulbs, asking himself why they’re shaking, harder and harder, why they’re falling. Until he realizes he’s the one who’s falling. Youngho catches him mid-air, muttering something in his low voice, before he pulls Baekhyun up easily, as if he’s a doll.  
  
“Come here,” he just says, putting an arm around Baekhyun’s waist and letting Baekhyun’s weight crash against his side.  
  
And sure, Baekhyun could flip him off, tell him to go away, or bite him like he promised, but he’s tired, so tired. The adrenaline has run out and all he has left is fatigue.  
  
“You’re lighter than I expected,” says Youngho, out of the blue.  
  
“Haven’t eaten in four days,” replies Baekhyun. He closes his eyes and psychedelic butterflies dance behind his closed eyelids. When he opens them again, the entire room is rolling around like a dime during a gambling game. The only thing that doesn’t move is a door. It’s dark red and a big number four is carved on it.  
  
“Ok, this is yours,” says Youngho, as he fumbles with the keys. They tumble inside together and only the boy’s hand around his waist keeps Baekhyun from collapsing on the ground.  
  
Somewhere above him, he can hear Youngho’s voice calling for him – “Wait, you can’t fall asleep like that! Hey, come on! You have to eat!” – and he really wants to ignore him, but then his stomach growls and clenches and he opens his eyes.  
  
“Food,” he murmurs. Youngho hovers above him, looking visibly pale. Baekhyun opens his mouth and lets the boy feed him the soup.  
  
It tastes sour and bitter, and it’s only tepid, bordering on cold, but Baekhyun is starving, seven cycles worth of hunger piling in his stomach and demanding food. The soup wakes him up, hunger fighting sleep and winning. He takes the bowl from the boy and he drinks the soup on his own. When he’s done, he collects the last drops of liquid with his thumb, sticking it in his mouth while Youngho works the pomegranate open. The seeds are red like Pophos’ lights, the same lights that allow fruits to grow in the greenhouses of the city. Baekhyun had never seen fruit before coming to Pophos and it still surprises him that he can eat it normally, as if it’s not more precious than gold.  
  
When he’s done, he stretches, bones crackling and rattling while the shirt rides up his back, exposing new bruises and old scars.  
  
“What is that?” Youngho asks, suddenly. Baekhyun squeals and jumps up, startled. He had forgotten Youngho was still there.  
  
“Oh, fuck,” he pants, heart beating wildly in his chest, “don’t do that again.”  
  
He takes a few deep breaths, staring at the boy with wide eyes. It’s actually ironic that he had completely erased Youngho’s presence considering that being aware of his surroundings is the way he’s survived until now. But it seems like the same sixth sense that helps him in the maze doesn’t work on this side of the barrier. It’s like Baekhyun has conditioned himself to react only to real danger and nothing else, and Seo Youngho, despite being tall and dark, despite looking like he could snap Baekhyun in half if only he wanted to do it, isn’t even close to be a danger for him.  
  
“What did you want again?”  
  
Youngho opens his mouth, he closes it again. He’s looking at Baekhyun’s belly, eyes fixed on the white skin showing where the shirt has ridden upwards, revealing the pale angles of a hip and on Baekhyun’s back…  
  
Baekhyun’s eyes narrow when he realizes the boy is staring at the scar that crosses his back from his right shoulder to his left hip. It’s white, almost pearlescent, a pale crescent moon on his already pale skin. And it’s a bad memory, one he doesn’t want to share with a stranger. He hastily covers it, to Youngho’s disappointment.  
  
“What was that?” he asks again, eyes wide and mouth open in a comical expression of stupor. “Can I see it again?”  
  
“No.”  
  
It’s curt and angry, and he also blinks for good measure, making silver sparkle in his pupils. He hoped it would scare the boy into not staring at him, but not even that can quench Youngho’s curiosity. Baekhyun curses the Furies and the demons and the maze too and pointedly looks at the door.  
  
“I’ve eaten and I need to sleep, can you show yourself out?” he asks, curtly.  
  
“That was kind of a big scar, wasn’t it?”  
  
“Get out. I need to rest.”  
  
This time, Youngho gets up and opens the door. At last. Except he stops before he leaves and stares at Baekhyun with a disarming intensity.  
  
“You’re different from what I expected,” he says slowly. “Don’t get me wrong, I’ve heard a lot about you. Favorite of the phoi, Dakrya’s most experienced Harbinger… You have quite a reputation among the guardians of the gates. And among other people too. But you look different.”  
  
Baekhyun resists the urge to snap back and tell Youngho that he’s only supposed to look like himself, which he already does, thank you very much. It’s stupid, he must admit, to get so worked up over a guard. Youngho is young, brutally honest and blunt in a way Baekhyun hasn’t seen in a long time. And, most importantly, not afraid of Baekhyun. In another life, maybe five, six years ago, Baekhyun would’ve asked himself if he wanted to make small talk with rookie guard Seo Youngho. (And he would’ve said yes.)  
  
But now is now and Baekhyun slams the door open and gestures for the boy to leave.  
  
“I will come to wake you up as soon as the Captain sends for you again,” says the guard. He steals another penetrating look at Baekhyun, eyes flashing down to where thin fabric is covering the scar, on his lips a question that will remain unanswered, for now. Baekhyun slams the door in his face and collapses on the bed before he trips and falls, closing his eyes as all the tiredness of the last few days suddenly crashes over him, taking away his strength and his conscience.  
  
When he falls asleep, he dreams of phoi. Except they’re not phoi, they’re fireflies, swarming over the field under stars Baekhyun has never seen. They’re butterflies, white and blue and mottled gold, their wings shuddering like dying flames. He smiles in his sleep.  
  


~

  
  
  
  


**03**

  
  
The Klæin is made of many books, probably written by many different people. Some are scientific essays, some are poetry, some are highly debatable gore narrative and some are lists of names and things.  
  
Baekhyun ignores the books about demons most of the time. His mother has told him enough about demons and he doesn’t feel the need to know more. Maybe he’s still a little scared. (He will come back when he’s older, devouring those books one after another, looking for the answer of questions he can’t ever ask anyone else.)  
  
Baekhyun likes the books that talk about the Overworld the most. The first book he reads is a collection of memories written by a nameless traveler. It’s like a diary, written in minute, elegant calligraphy strokes. Baekhyun learns how to read and write spending afternoon after afternoon staring at that elegant handwriting, wondering what kind of person sat at night in front of the fire to record his or her journeys.  
  
He falls asleep to beautiful images of a world suspended in time and place, miles and miles above his head, unreachable and perfect.  
  
He just loves the idea of it. Flowers and butterflies, a shower of endless colors, tender pastels and bright reds and yellows, whites, blues, the mottled gold of daisies in endless green fields. The rivers, the mountains, blue and green and violet. The sea. And then the cities, not tiny and forced inside ugly, suffocating black caverns, humid and cold, but exploding from the ground like dreams. White stone and wood and fires shining inside the windows at night. Being able to go whenever you want, wherever you want, without fearing the darkness. The sun.  
  
The sun is something so big, so scary, that Baekhyun can’t even imagine it properly. He finds a couple of kids drawings in the archives of the temple. A yellow circle surrounded by yellow rays, like tentacles in a blue, blue sky.  
  
There’s no sky in the Netherworld. Only stone and stone and some crystal and more stone. And darkness. Baekhyun traces the old drawing with his fingers, trying to imagine how the sun must really look like.  
  
Some books of the Klæin say that the sun is a big mass of fire suspended in the middle of the sky, so heavy that it can attract the earth in his orbit, forcing it to turn around the sun itself forever. The book calls it revolution, a concept discovered for the first time by a scientist named Copernicus who was punished because his studies went against the church.  
  
Baekhyun really feels a lot of affection towards this Copernicus uncle, who was locked in a tower until he said that everything he had discovered was a lie. He turns page after page and thinks that, no matter the time, no matter if it’s the Overworld or the Netherworld, things never really change.  
  
Though the scientific description of the sun is interesting, Baekhyun likes the other version better. The one that says that the sun is carried around the world by a golden cartridge led by a god. There are pictures in that book, of the cartridge and of the god, his face so bright it can’t be painted.  
  
Baekhyun stares at the colors for hours. They’re kind of familiar and evocative, like something he should know but has forgotten. The book is too old and worn to read the name of the god and Baekhyun can only stare at the frayed words as if they hold some kind of majestic, revolutionary meaning that could change his life forever, if only he was able to discover it.  
  
When the librarian finds him on the floor, surrounded by books, she scolds him and she sends him to bed without dinner. He doesn’t get beaten because, even if he was wasting time on books not recommended by the teachers, he was still reading the Klæin and that’s commendable.  
  
Baekhyun goes to bed hungry, but he bargains and obtains to bring at least one of the books with him. He chooses a thick tome about flowers. There are so many words he doesn’t understand and he writes them all in his notebook. Words like freesia and carnation and calla. He repeats them under his breath, feet hanging from the tiny bed, wrapped in darkness. There’s never light in the room of a _pais_ , to help them get used to the darkness. Baekhyun doesn’t care, he steals little embers of magic fires from the kitchens and hides them in his pockets, little jewels, blue and purple and pale lilac. They’re cold like dying stars. Baekhyun could receive thirty lashes for it, ten for the theft, ten for bringing light to his dark room and ten for the blatant disrespect, but he doesn’t care.  
  
He reads about flowers. As little as it is, sometimes, it’s enough to make things better.  
  


~

  
  
  
  


**31**

  
  
Flowers. White, red and yellow, pale lilac, dotting an endless stretch of green, basking in the warmth of the sun. Baekhyun has never seen the sun, but Chanyeol has talked about it for so long – so long – that sometimes he almost feels like he knows it too. Baekhyun wants to see it so bad, he wants to fly towards it like a leaf shaking in the wind, like a bird with white, wide wings, like Icarus, born to fail and yet trying harder, flying higher, smiling at the sun, but a knock at the door startles him. If dreaming is like flying, then waking up feels like falling. Baekhyun opens his eyes and crashes in his tiny, dirty room in Pophos, Seo Youngho’s face peeking at him, a mask of awkwardness.  
  
“You must wake up,” says the boy. “You’ve been summoned by the Ruler.”  
  
A moment later, Youngho is on the floor, on his back, Baekhyun’s knee pushing down on his chest, cutting off his breath supply. It takes a moment for Baekhyun to put the pieces together, to reconcile Youngho’s surprised face, the buzzing lights and the tiled floor with the city of Pophos.  
  
He scrambles up to his feet, hearing Youngho’s broken groan when he lets him go. The boy looks at him like he’s seeing him for the first time. After a split moment of hesitation, Baekhyun offers him a hand.  
  
“I apologize,” he says, shrugging. “Instinct.”  
  
Youngho nods, eyes wide, shaking. And then his face opens up in a smile, a little crooked but still a smile, and he chuckles. “That was… impressive. I can’t believe you managed to put me down like that. Like, you put _me_ down. I used to be a soldier, you know? Military training and all that shit. Sure, it only happened because I wasn’t expecting it, but…”  
  
Baekhyun finds himself snorting back. “Wow, slow down with the self-praise. You might have been a soldier, but I’ve seen many dangerous things in my life and you’re not even close to the top of the list.”  
  
Youngho shakes his head and picks himself up from the floor. “You haven’t seen me being dangerous yet,” he says, with a comical air of self-importance and pompousness that, for a moment, Baekhyun is reminded of Chanyeol. Not the Chanyeol he first met, that alien creature of loneliness and wild danger, the Chanyeol Baekhyun fell in love with, but the Chanyeol who’s waiting for him in Dakrya right now, tall and lanky and so full of himself, but also quick to joke at his own mistakes, dimples showing and the wrinkles at his eyes deepening in mirth when he laughs. The Chanyeol who loved him back.  
  
Youngho’s last laughter dies down suddenly and the boy sighs, as he remembers the reason he’s come. “I’m really sorry for waking you up, but I need you to come with me now. The Ruler needs to talk to you, and he–”  
  
“Doesn’t like to wait, I know. Did Donghae deliver the letters?”  
  
Youngho grimaces. “He hasn’t come back. Not yet.” He hesitates at the door. “Actually, I’m not supposed to let you out until he comes back, but the Ruler has personally asked about you and I can’t refuse.”  
  
“You can’t refuse? Really?” Oh, this is interesting. “I thought you were one of Donghae’s men, but you can’t refuse the Ruler’s request… Whose side are you on, Youngho?”  
  
“That’s a dangerous question to ask, Harbinger.”  
  
Officially, Baekhyun doesn’t care about what happens in the Buried Cities. His place is in the maze, in darkness and danger. He carries the letters, nothing more and nothing less. Unofficially, he’s one of the few people ever allowed in the presence of the Ruler of Pophos and he knows that the old man is close to the end of his journey, teetering on the line between life and death. He also knows that Donghae is one of the candidates for the throne, just like he knows that the Temple of the Klæin in Pophos doesn’t like Donghae at all. Too young, too progressive, too arrogant to let the Temple take the reins of the city. Too difficult to control. It’s no wonder Donghae is friends with Dakrya’s Despotes. They are, after all, very similar.  
  
He wonders what the Ruler of Pophos thinks of all this big mess, if he’s already chosen his successor or if he really wants to create a civil war. He wonders if he even cares. He’s dying, after all. Baekhyun wonders and wonders, until he remembers he’s a Harbinger and he’s not supposed to wonder. He only has to follow orders.  
  
So he follows Youngho, outside, through the streets of Pophos, stealing long glances at the guard and wondering how can he look both like a soldier and a young, naïve child at the same time. How old is he, again? Baekhyun is afraid to ask. Age is relative in Dakrya, where everyone dies young, but here in Pophos even someone like Youngho could live to see his forty years.  
  
It takes only three cycles to walk from Dakrya to Pophos. With the right conditions, an experienced Harbinger like Baekhyun can make it in two. Two cycles. Less than an inch in Baekhyun’s map. And yet it’s like they’re two different worlds, separate folds of reality, unable to do anything other than communicate. They’re standing alone.  
  
Baekhyun is sure Youngho has never been in a mine, just like any child of Dakrya has never seen electric light. Children in Lype walk barefoot on warm volcanic stone and children in Metameleya sleep under mounds of blankets and wake up to ice drawing arabesques on their windows. And all of them are just barely aware that there’s something beyond the darkness of the maze. All of them but the children with silver in their eyes. Messengers. Travelers. Harbingers, they call them. The only ones who can see beyond the borders of their city. Sometimes, Baekhyun thinks it’s not that bad of a life.  
  
“We should hurry up,” says Youngho, shaking him away from his thoughts. “There’s a big function at the Temple in three hours. I don’t want to get caught in the crowd.”  
  
Baekhyun doesn’t know what time is it right now. Pophos looks empty and desolated, but still bright and buzzing like a giant beehive. He can hear the generators running under the street, fueling the colorful lights around them. They’re blunt and sharp, too strong for his eyes, even as he looks at them through his lowered lashes. The magic fires in Dakrya are infinitely easier to deal with, violet and purple so much softer than the electric red and blues here, neon lights that bleed like open wounds on the dirty streets.  
  
When they walk in front of a bright white billboard, Baekhyun’s eyes burn and he winces a little. Youngho turns towards him, but Baekhyun replies before the boy can ask. “It’s fine.”  
  
“It doesn’t look like you’re fine,” says Youngho, grimacing when Baekhyun glares at him.  
  
“But I’m really fine, don’t worry. It just takes longer for me to get used to your lights. I have very delicate eyes, you know?”  
  
Youngho nods slowly and, before Baekhyun can stop him, he takes off his hat and puts it on Baekhyun’s head, pushing down to make sure it doesn’t fall. Baekhyun is too surprised to stop him. The hat is a little big for him, but it really helps.  
  
“No need to thank me,” he says. “I have this friend and he, too, has very delicate eyes.”  
  
“Is your friend a Harbinger?” he asks, and Youngho splutters and panics for a moment. “I… No, I mean, he’s not a Harbinger. Why would you… He’s not one.”  
  
“I see,” he says, watching with amusement as Youngho struggles to regain his composure. He wonders if that’s the reason he asked to enter in the Guard of the Golden Gates. Maybe he really does have a crush on one of the Harbingers who come and go between Pophos and the other Buried Cities. For Youngho’s sake, he really hopes it doesn’t lead to anything else. Harbingers are quick to leave – quick to die.  
  
“Is that why you volunteered to take care of me? Are you trying to extort me some information about Harbingers?”  
  
Youngho blushes and mutters something that sounds like, “It’s not a crush, shut up.” Baekhyun almost laughs in his face. He didn’t really like the boy in the beginning, but Youngho is kind of growing on him. It’s been a long time since someone who wasn’t a Harbinger was so nice to him. For Baekhyun, who’s used to people thinking he’s a demon most of the time – oh, if they knew about Chanyeol, the irony – it’s enough.  
  
“Who is it? I know most the Harbingers who visit Pophos, you know?”  
  
“That’s why I’m not telling you.”  
  
Youngho does ask question though. How long did you even go without sleeping? How farther have you traveled in the maze? How many Buried Cities have you visited? Youngho is sensitive enough not to mention Furies, nor other Harbingers, but he does ask if Baekhyun’s eyes hurt when he looks at the phoi.  
  
“Not at all, if I must be honest. But some Harbingers find it extremely uncomfortable. You know you could ask all these question to your non-Harbinger friend too, right?”  
  
“He doesn’t come back often, and when he does, he’s always really tired. No time to talk.”  
  
_Find the time to talk,_ wants to say Baekhyun, _before it’s too late._ He doesn’t say anything, because in one way or another this nameless Harbinger whom Youngho really likes will disappear, breaking Youngho’s heart. Maybe it’s better if they don’t get too close. Maybe it’s worse. Not even Yoona knew the right answer to this question.  
  
They keep walking and Baekhyun counts the streets as they pass them. He always tries to map his surrounding, no matter where he is, a habit ingrained into his brain by the countless days spent in the maze. He likes knowing where he is and he likes knowing how to go back. The idea of being lost in this city, where the phoi can’t show up to help him, is terrifying. So he counts the streets and takes mental notes about the state of the buildings, the shops, the names on the doors. The messy, confused layout of the poor neighborhoods at the base of the city tidies up the closer they get to the wealthy districts, where the map is spread nicely, stern and rigorous, geometrically perfect.  
  
“How long will you stay here?” asks Youngho, suddenly.  
  
“Don’t worry, you won’t have to babysit me for long. As soon as the Ruler gives me his message for Dakrya, I’ll leave again. But it’ll be very soon, I think. There’s something going on between Dakrya and Pophos these days, your Ruler and my Despotes have a lot to talk about. I’ve been travelling non-stop for the past few months.”  
  
“Don’t you know what they’re talking about?” asks Youngho.  
  
“No, and I don’t care. I spend most of my life in the maze anyway, so I’m pretty indifferent to what happens in the cities.”  
  
“You truly don’t care? Dakrya is your home too.”  
  
“Is it, really? I don’t have anyone in Dakrya. No family, no friends, no lovers. Only people who hate me. Why should I care?” He can’t miss the way Youngho’s face drops suddenly. “I’m sorry, but this my life is not in the cities. It’s in the maze. There’s always a new message to deliver, and then another, and then another. We only stop when we’re dead.”  
  
“Don’t you wish things could be different? What if you weren’t forced to live such a life?”  
  
“The law of the Klæin says…”  
  
“What if the law changed?”  
  
“That’s a dangerous question to ask, Guardian,” he says, throwing Youngho’s words back at him. “Don’t make that face, come on. We’re all bound to die, someday. Do you think your life will be any different from mine? You get up every day, go to work, go home, work again, home again. You’ll marry here, have children here and you will die here. The only difference between us is that I will probably die out there, instead of here.”  
  
“That’s an incredibly depressing way of thinking.”  
  
Baekhyun can only nod, not wanting to upset Youngho further.  
  
“Do you like it? Being a Harbinger? Do you think it’s worth it?”  
  
Chanyeol’s smile flashes in Baekhyun’s mind. He hides a smile of his own from Youngho’s curious eyes. “I don’t exactly like it, but I wouldn’t change my life for anything else.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
“Oh, that’s a secret.”  
  
Youngho purses his lips, almost pouting. Even his pout is attractive. He really reminds Baekhyun of Chanyeol, in some ways. Especially in his stubborn, deadpan questions. In the way he mulls over Baekhyun’s answer, dissecting them slowly, trying to find the weak point so that he can win the argument. Except Chanyeol is so much better at this than Youngho. With Chanyeol, Baekhyun has never had a chance to win. That doesn’t stop him from trying though, every single time.  
  
“What about the scar?” says Youngho, slowing down so he can walk next to Baekhyun. “The one I saw yesterday.”  
  
This time, Baekhyun’s smile falls as quickly as it had risen, and a prickle of uneasiness crosses his back, following the same path of the scar. His eyes itch and he closes them to hide the silver swirling inside them.  
  
“Another question,” he asks.  
  
“I’m sorry, that was out of line.” Youngho really quick to apologize, but despite Baekhyun’s discomfort he doesn’t drop the topic. “It’s just that I’ve never seen a scar like that. It seemed to glow, like...”  
  
Like the moon, Baekhyun wants to say, but he can’t. He doesn’t think this boy would understand. There’s no moon here, there’s never been a moon. The moon, if there still is one, is somewhere miles and miles above their head, on the surface, and nor Baekhyun nor Youngho will ever be able to see it.  
  
“And, I don’t know, it looked so pretty.”  
  
“It’s a scar. There’s nothing pretty about scars.”  
  
“But–”  
  
“I almost died,” he says, and Youngho shuts up. “I had a bad encounter with a Fury during my First Flight – you know what a First Flight is, right? That thing almost torn me apart. It took months to heal. The claws of Furies are often poisoned and the residual poison is what gives the scars that white color. There’s nothing romantic or mysterious about it. I almost died, nothing else.” His fingers close around the hem of his shirt and he tightens them in a fist as memories flood his mind. Yoona’s screams, his own. The pain. When he looks up, Youngho’s eyes are intense and bottomless and he looks like he doesn’t really know what to say to apologize. “Let’s just walk, Youngho, I’m not angry. Don’t worry.”  
  
They walk in silence and, if Baekhyun feels a little guilty for ruining the mood, he doesn’t let it show.  
  


~

  
  
  
  


**04**

  
  
A few hours before his First Flight, Baekhyun knocks at Yoona’s door to find her still awake and sitting on the small bed with a book laying on her lap, unopened. A couple of magic fire embers are scattered on the floor, giving the room a faint purple glow. She looks like she was waiting for him.  
  
“Couldn’t sleep?” she asks. She smiles her signature knowing smile, but this time it’s strained, just like her words. “Relax, _pais_ , everything will be alright.”  
  
“That’s for easy for you to say,” he mutters. “You already know the phoi love you.”  
  
“They will love you too, don’t worry. You’re adorable. Just remember, be polite. Be kind. Trust in them. It will be alright, I promise.”  
  
Baekhyun looks at the ceiling. In the six months he spent at the temple since he became a _pais_ he has never left the dungeons. In a few hours he’ll leave not only the dungeons of the temple but his city, Dakrya, for the first time. He’ll do the only thing he was born to do. He’ll walk in the maze.  
  
“Yoona,” he says, and his voice is tempered by the darkness around them. “What happens if they really don’t come?”  
  
Rhetoric question. Useless question. He knows the law. It’s been explained to him, so many times. A cursed child who can’t become a Harbinger is only a cursed child, and Dakrya has no need for a cursed child. If the phoi don’t listen to Baekhyun’s prayer, he’ll die in the maze. Yoona can’t help him. Her only duty is to take him to the middle of the maze and leave him there. Baekhyun must be able to come back on his own.  
  
Yoona wisely decides not to answer.  
  
There are so many things Baekhyun doesn’t know about her. Tomorrow he could die and he doesn’t even know in which neighborhood of Dakrya she was born. If she used to have siblings. Her favorite color.  
  
“How many kids did you train before me?” he asks. “How many of them survived?”  
  
Yoona frowns. She doesn’t answer this time, either, but it doesn’t matter. Baekhyun doesn’t need the answer, he just needs to ask the question. (As if asking the question could exorcise the answer.)  
  
“Did you train my brother too?”  
  
Her eyes widen. “ _Pais_ …”  
  
“I think I deserve to know. I could die tomorrow, this could be the last chance I have.”  
  
There’s a defeat so deep in Yoona’s eyes Baekhyun could almost swim in it.  
  
“I didn’t train your brother. I trained with your brother,” she says, slowly. “But I can’t tell you where he is now.”  
  
Baekhyun sighs. He doesn’t need to know where he is, either. “Tell me how he died, then. Because he died. I know he did. He’s not in the list of Harbingers of this temple, nor in the list of Harbingers we traded to other cities. Which can only mean one thing.”  
  
“ _Pais_ , please…”  
  
“I’m not stupid. I’m not eight years old. I’m not like the other children you trained.”  
  
She looks down, at the book on her lap, at the walls, where the magic embers are drawing ghosts of weak light, at the closed door. Everywhere but Baekhyun’s eyes.  
  
“How long have you known?”  
  
“As soon as I was able to read I sneaked in the archives and looked for his name. It wasn’t there. The only names deleted from the official lists are the names of the Harbingers who died. You told me.”  
  
Yoona looks so pained. “You’re so smart, _pais_. You’re too smart for this world.”  
  
He takes her hand and doesn’t let go. “You told me the names of all the Harbingers who died in the last ten years. But you never told me about him.”  
  
The embers of the magic fires tremble gently as their light dims. They will die soon. Baekhyun can barely make out Yoona’s face.  
  
“He was my mentor when I came here for the first time. I was only nine, ten years old maybe? And he was a teenager, just like you now. He was my hero.” Her voice breaks and Baekhyun realizes she’s probably going to cry. “And I… I didn’t love him, I was just a child, but I would’ve loved him. In a few years maybe.”  
  
“I’m sorry,” says Baekhyun.  
  
She shakes her head violently. “No, don’t be. You… You look a lot like him. Not his face, but the way he smiled. Some things you say, sometimes… I can see that you were brothers. That you grew up in the same house. You told me your brother taught you how to play hopscotch, once. He taught me too, in the refectory.”  
  
Oh, but this is so like Baekbom. He would do anything to make a child smile.  
  
Yoona snorts softly. “I was sad, so he distracted the Weepers on patrol and then he asked me to play hopscotch, but I couldn’t, because when I was chosen I was too young and I had never learned, can you believe it? And so he taught me. He drew the court with chalk in the middle of the refectory, between the benches. He was one of the best people I’ve ever known.”  
  
Baekhyun smiles. Yes, this is definitely Baekbom.  
  
“How did he die?” he asks in the end. The embers have already dimmed to the faintest, tiniest glow and the room has plunged into darkness. Every word leaves his mouth and lights up the silence, briefly, a staccato of sound that fades away too quickly to be of any comfort.  
  
He finds Yoona’s hands in the darkness. They’re cold. Baekhyun’s hands are cold too. “Please, please. I need to know. He was my brother.”  
  
An icy drop falls on his wrist. It takes a moment to understand that Yoona is crying. Her tears, too, are cold.  
  
“He died during my First Flight,” she says. “He died to save me.”  
  
Something snaps out of place inside Baekhyun, like a gear getting stuck. The tiniest, most useless gear. It blocks everything. Breakdown. Baekhyun can feel his heart stopping and struggling to restart. It’s stuck. It’s stuck. He panics.  
  
Yoona squeezes his hand when she realizes he’s stopped breathing. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she says, like a prayer. “I’m sorry.”  
  
And she’s still her, still Yoona, the girl who taught him everything. The girl who never said his name but never forgot it either. The girl who gave him hope. He wonders how she felt, all these years, alone in the temple with the ghost of the boy who died to save her.  
  
He squeezes back. “I’m sorry too,” he says. When he hugs her, he hopes she can feel a little bit of Baekbom in him. Maybe she does.  
  
“You know, I’ve trained many children and many of them have died and every time I felt like a coward because I couldn’t be there with them. Because he came back, for me, but I couldn’t do the same for them, I never…” She’s sobbing uncontrollably now, and her voice is wet against Baekhyun’s shoulder. She looks so tiny. “I didn’t want to train people anymore, but when I saw you… I immediately knew you were his brother. I tried my best with you. I really want you to survive. More than anything else. I want to show Baekbom he did the right thing. You’re my chance to make things right, so promise me. Please, promise me you’ll survive tomorrow.”  
  
“I’ll survive Yoona, I promise.”  
  


~

  
  
  
  


**32**

  
  
The perfect arc of the vault is made of polished black marble and thousands of golden flowers. Countless tiny lanterns are scattered and hidden between the petals, and their glimmer highlights the colors of the gems set in the stone, red and blue and a pale yellow, turning the arc into a field of wildflowers. They’re gifts from Dakrya, without a doubt, and Baekhyun wonders how many trips the Harbingers in charge of Pophos had to do, to carry all those stones. He wonders how many of them died while doing it. What a waste.  
  
“It’s beautiful, right?” asks Youngho, pointing at the palace.  
  
“Yes. Remarkable.”  
  
Not many people know, but the door of the palace in Pophos is a perfect copy of the doors of the Elysian Fields described in the fifty-fourth book of the Klæin, a book Baekhyun was once forced to memorize after the schoolmaster of the temple asked him to describe the heavens and he wasn’t able to answer the question. As today, he still remembers every word of that book. He doubts the owner of a palace that can flaunt this kind of unnecessarily opulent doors has read the Klæin. Many things can be said about the Sovereign Ruler of Pophos, but not that he’s a pious man.  
  
He’s a good leader, though, and he knows the value of a good relationship with the Temple of the Klæin. The temple keeps people happy, after all. It feeds them stories of a world they will never be able to see, a stolen world, a far-away world, a world that fills the hunger in their stomach with the thought that _it was ours and one day it will be ours again._  
  
Lies. Big fat lies. The Temple does not want things to change. Chanyeol told Baekhyun he will take him to the Overworld, but the Hiereus would rather see Baekhyun dead than free. They would kill Chanyeol on the spot if they could, just because his existence can prove that the Klæin is wrong and that the limit between the Netherworld and the Overworld can be crossed.  
  
Life in the Netherworld is built on limits, on edges, on borders and fences. Invisible lines that must never be crossed. Baekhyun walks through the doors of the palace, but Youngho stops right at the edge. I will wait for you here,” he says, apologetic. “I can’t enter the palace anymore since I left the service.”  
  
“It won’t take long,” says Baekhyun.  
  
He turns around and walks down the stairs, venturing in the belly of the building. There are carvings on the walls, fluid and morbid lines that tell a story of hundreds of years ago, about a golden apple and a war. Baekhyun knows it well. This story, too, comes from the old pages of the Klæin.  
  
None of the guards try to stop him. They look at his clothes and at his silver eyes and they don’t say anything, so he simply follows the golden carvings on the wall until he reaches the throne room. The most powerful man of Pophos is already waiting for him inside.  
  
The Ruler is old and crumbly, like a worn book. His eyes are dark and his soul is even darker. He despises Baekhyun more than he needs him and he needs him more than he can afford to despise him.  
  
Baekhyun takes a step forward. He doesn’t fall on his knees, like he should, like he used to. Lately, he finds it unbearable. It might be because he’s more experienced and more respected than any other Harbinger. Maybe he doesn’t care about his life at all. Or maybe he’s just fed up with all the lies the Klæin and the governments of all the cities have been telling for decades. According to Chanyeol, none of those options are correct. Chanyeol simply thinks Baekhyun has a terrible attitude and a problem with authority. Baekhyun would never admit he’s right.  
  
The guards at the door send nervous glances between the Ruler and the Harbinger, not sure whether they’re supposed to force him to kneel or let it go. The Ruler sends them away with a flick of his thin, wrinkly wrists and they disappear quietly behind golden doors. He then motions for Baekhyun to come over. Even the small gesture causes him pain and he quickly rests his hands, burdened by heavy jewelry, on his knees.  
  
As he gets closer, Baekhyun sees the flickering light of the barrier separating royalty from the scum. He smiles to himself. It looks like there’s almost nothing left to protect of the old man on the other side.  
  
The Ruler of Pophos, like the King of Amortia, the President of Metameleya and, yes, even the Despotes of Dakrya – they’re all the same, in Baekhyun’s opinion – is a greedy, bitter old man. He wants trade, he wants alliances, he wants gold and more than anything he wants war, to turn the maze into a big, dark empire that only he would rule, alone and unstoppable. In a real war, Pophos would triumph. They have the power to defend themselves and their advanced technology would make it easy for them to attack. They would conquer the whole Alliance in a short time. The only problem is that all the Buried Cities are separated by miles and miles of tunnels, galleries, tiny staircases, chasms and sinkholes, old wells and giant, desolated caves inhabited by pillars of crystal and marble, of metals streaking the walls of the labyrinth gold and silver. Nests of Furies. Stranger-Places.  
  
Magic is unstable inside the maze, electricity cannot travel in the abyss. Compasses don’t work. Any kind of light attracts Furies. And then there’s the Darkest-Hour, a window of time during which the maze changes its shape and the ugliest, hungriest creatures crawl out of their holes to hunt.  
  
Baekhyun would like to see an army trying to walk across the maze. During his first day of training, Yoona told him someone had in fact tried, a long time ago.  
  
“How do you think it ended?” she had asked, red pink and shiny, long pretty hair, so thin she looked like she was going to fade away soon. (She did.)  
  
The Ruler of Pophos is forced to depend on people like Baekhyun and he hates it. Baekhyun hates it too, so they’re kinda even.  
  
“Greetings, Sovereign Ruler of Pophos. I listen to your message.”  
  
His words are met by silence. He hears the rustling of silk as the old man moves. His voice sounds like a screech.  
  
“You did take your time this time, boy.”  
  
The patronizing tone kindles that spark of annoyance inside him and he hides a cheeky smile, trying to keep his face blank.  
  
“The maze is dangerous, sir.”  
  
“The maze is dangerous, the boy says. You little rats used to have more respect. You used to do your job faster and better, because back in my times if you little dead-eyes-ghosts didn’t do your job better, we left you to die alone in the maze.”  
  
“My lord could do it, but then my lord would have no one to tell the Despotes of Dakrya his only available Harbinger is dead, and that he needs to send another one. I know you don’t have any messengers here in Pophos.”  
  
He’s gambling with his life, but Baekhyun is already twenty-five years old. He was already old for a Harbinger when he started and now he’s _really_ old. Only Taekwoon is older than him, but he started after him, and that makes Baekhyun the more experienced Harbinger still alive. If his tongue doesn’t get him killed.  
  
To his surprise, the Ruler chuckles, and it looks like that single gesture requires all his strength.  
  
“You know nothing, insolent rascal,” he rasps, before he explodes in a fit of coughs. Baekhyun takes a step back. “Do I need to come back later?” he asks, politely, pretending not to notice the blood staining the floor.  
  
“No, stay. Like I said, I have a message for you. I am dying, but I will make sure I do something right before I disappear from this place. I will give the world a goodbye that will be remembered forever.”  
  
One of Baekhyun’s eyebrows shoots upwards, unimpressed by the delirium of a dying man. “The message, sir.”  
  
“Sunyoung, daughter!”  
  
At his imperious call, a veiled woman comes out of nowhere, walks inside the barrier and takes a creamy envelope from a pocket of the Ruler’s vest. She delivers it into Baekhyun’s waiting hand and disappears with a bow. The boy turns on his heels, ready to flee the palace and the fake, deceiving safety of this city that never sleeps to drown in the darkness of the maze.  
  
A shaky voice stops him.  
  
“Wait a moment, lad.” He stops. “Before you go, there’s something I want you to say to your Despotes. A last message from me, if we can call it that.”  
  
Baekhyun’s blood freezes.  
  
“Sir, I’m not supposed to… The law says…”  
  
“Do you think I care about the law, kid? Little ignorant brat.” Another fit of cough. Blood trickles down from his parted lips. “I’m already dead. The laws of the temple can’t touch me anymore. Only the Unseen can, but he doesn’t care about me, so I won’t care about him either.”  
  
With an imperious gesture, he calls the girl again. She rushes at his side and cleans the blood from his lips with a white handkerchief. “Tell your Despotes that I know what he’s doing with my nephew. I have known this whole time, because I might be old, but I’m not stupid. It won’t work. Tell him that the temple will find out very soon.”  
  
Baekhyun looks frantically between the old man and the veiled woman. “Sir, I’m sorry, but…”  
  
“Tell him he’s wasting his time. Too young, too stupid, all these young kids are so quick to talk about revolutions. They know nothing. Tell him, Harbinger Byun Baekhyun from Dakrya, that he needs to get rid of the Daimon, before it’s too late. If he doesn’t, the Temple of the Klæin will get rid of both the Daimon and him.”  
  
Baekhyun’s eyes flare hot white. “The Daimon?” he asks, without thinking. Daimon is an old word for demon and… Chanyeol… Baekhyun feels power surge in his eyes, the silver scythe twirling around his pupil as his subconscious tries to soothe his worry by summoning the phoi.  
  
The Ruler’s eyes narrow. “Oh, so you know what I’m talking about. Interesting. I would have liked to see how this situation will unfold, but my time here is over. Deliver the message, if you want. You may go.”  
  
Baekhyun retreats with shaky legs, the letter crumpled in his hands. As he closes the door, he hears the Ruler muttering to himself. “Those eyes, witchcraft I say.”  
  
His heart leaps in his throat while he runs away from the mansion and into the darkness of the palace. The letter in his messenger bag feels heavy. The Ruler’s words are even heavier in his mind.  
  


~

  
  
  
  


**05**

  
  
Baekhyun is running. He doesn’t know where he’s going, he doesn’t know where he is. There are no directions to follow, no paths. The maze is an uncoordinated and lawless system, prone to change and incongruous, a world in two dimensions and only one direction. No up or down, left or right. There’s no going back. There’s only forward, _forward forward forward don’t stop don’t ever stop because a dark, dark thing is right behind you_.  
  
His thoughts flutter like feathers in the storm. He struggles against his own mind, trying to understand what has gone wrong, whose mistake it’s been. One moment they were fine, he and Yoona. It was his first journey, his First Flight, like the Weepers call it. He was trying to summon the phoi, she was helping him, when the thing… the beast, found them.  
  
And then there was only darkness and blood, an unimaginable pain blooming in Baekhyun’s back, in his side, from the back of his skull to his hip, where the claws of the creature had found the tender meat. And Yoona, coming back for him. Did she do it for Baekhyun? Did she do it for Baekbom? Baekhyun will never know. Yoona looks at him, one last time, and in her eyes the black has eaten all the silver away. Black moon. (Her time is already over.)  
  
“Go!” she screams, her last word, before the creature pounce on her, shaking her body like a toy doll, tearing her apart. Blood squirts from the gaping cut in her body, blood everywhere, on her hollow eyes, her hollow mouth, her hollow chest.  
  
Baekhyun slips on it, unable to tear himself away from the revolting sight in front of him, from the cracks of broken bones and the gurgle of blood flowing from the body of his mentor – his sister, his only friend. He can see the creature the way he could see the negative image of a nightmare still haunting his closed eyelids even after he woke up, crunching into Yoona’s belly, digging its way inside her ribcage. The beast has hands, big hands, dirty and old, and claws, long and curved and sharp, and a mouth made of darkness and hunger and death and it’s too much, too much.  
  
And then the thing looks at him and it has no eyes, it’s just a shapeless mound of nightmares, but Baekhyun knows it’s staring at him. He screams. He runs. He runs and runs, and he feels his body spasm, torn apart, open, exposed. He feels. He feels. He only feels his legs, step after step, stride after stride, and his lungs, working against the fatigue, the friction, the pain. He doesn’t know where he’s going. It’s only his first time in the maze and Yoona is not with him – Yoona is gone, gone forever – and Baekhyun is leaking, blood and tears and screams, he’s leaking _fear_ and the beast can smell it and it only makes the chase more exciting for the monster. Baekhyun is praying – _please save me save me save me I don’t want to die I don’t want to die_ – and the phoi answer.  
  
They surge from the ground, from the walls, from thin air. Their light leaks from the ceilings of the cave. They’re silver and pale blue and they scatter lazily when Baekhyun runs through them, like dandelion seeds.  
  
Baekhyun is fifteen years old and it’s his first time in the maze. He’s never seen phoi before. In his imagination, they were bigger, stronger, like magic fires, purple and red. In his imagination, they were like a lighthouse, piercing through the darkness. In reality, they’re just tiny, insignificant lights, but their vision fills him with a relief so big it pulls against the limits of his soul, bringing it to the point of bursting. He follows them without thinking, without questioning. He runs because there’s a monster chasing him. He prays because he doesn’t want to die. He hopes that, somewhere in the maze, there is a safe place for him. _Please someone, anyone, please help me, help me._  
  
He doesn’t know if they’re listening. Yoona said you can only survive if the phoi love you. Oh, but the phoi love Baekhyun. They must love him, please, _please_. Because everything is lost, his mentor is dead, ripped out and spread on the cold stone like a feast, and the dark, dark thing chasing Baekhyun through the tunnel has almost gotten him.  
  
He turns, a last corner, a last breath, and he hears the claws of the beast dig into the stone, a terrible, scratching sound, right behind him. He turns the corner and the tunnel widens suddenly, exploding in a big cave whose end Baekhyun cannot see. He doesn’t realize he’s on top of a set of old stairs and he falls, rolling down the steps.  
  
He thinks it’s over. He’s dead. Yoona died for him and he couldn’t even. He couldn’t even…  
  
He closes his eyes and waits for death to claim him, but the monster doesn’t pounce. Baekhyun can hear its angry snarls, but the Fury doesn’t dare to enter the cave.  
  
He opens his silver eyes, slowly, feeling power swirl in them. The chamber is overflowing with light. Galaxies of phoi, like little stars, so many they turn the cold cave into the starry summer skies in his favorite book of the Klæin.  
  
He realizes he’s landed next to someone’s feet and he feels a pang of relief – he’s not alone, there’s another Harbinger, just like him – but it’s suddenly overwhelmed by sudden, sudden fear and the unstoppable instinct to shout at this person to run away, _there’s a Fury, save yourself!_  
  
And everything disappears, obliterated, when he finally focuses on the stranger’s face.  
  
It’s a boy, older than Baekhyun, older than everything Baekhyun has ever known. A boy with dark eyes and dark hair and a lyre hanging from his shoulder. Baekhyun should immediately realize something is wrong, because no one in the Netherworld has ever looked so… substantial. No one.  
  
No one but this boy, _this boy_... It’s like Baekhyun has never seen a boy before, like all the other boys Baekhyun has ever met were only pale copies of the boy in front of him, like he’s the only person to hold real colors in a black and white world. Like he doesn’t belong and like everything belongs to him at the same time. He’s so real Baekhyun feels like a ghost next to him. His entire existence is _deep_ in a way that leaves Baekhyun gasping, drowning, wishing for more.  
  
The beast roars, snapping Baekhyun out of his hazy, confused thoughts. He tries to get up, but the boy stops him. He steps between Baekhyun and there’s a sword in his right hand and a shield in his left hand, and nothing of this matters because they’re both going to die now.  
  
Except they don’t. The beast hovers at the mouth of the cave, so black, so hollow, that not even the phoi can tear the veil of darkness around it, clasps and tendrils coiling towards the two boys. It doesn’t dare to get too close.  
  
The boy takes another step towards it and the beast growls, a long, deep sound that haunts the maze, so deep it’s like looking at an abyss. The abyss looks at them and the boy in front Baekhyun looks back and, like a magic, like a lie, the monster retreats. Slowly, inexorably, taking away its darkness with it, scared by the mere gaze of a boy who appeared to save Baekhyun at the bottom of an old well, like the prince of an old, old fairytale. The boy keeps a dutiful guard in front of Baekhyun until the monster has disappeared.  
  
Baekhyun stares, bloody and tired and unable to believe his cursed eyes.  
  
Maybe it’s a dream, a lucid dream, a hallucination caused by the fumes of a geyser or something like that. But it’s not because the boy, The boy smiles, a dimple showing on his right cheek, and asks him, “What’s your name?”  
  
“I… Baekhyun,” he mutters, confused, forgetting he was never supposed to say his name before he came back safely from his First Flight.  
  
“Baekhyun,” says the boy slowly, as the world stops spinning around them. The Fury forgotten, the maze forgotten, his First Flight forgotten, Baekhyun can only think it’s the first time in more than a year, since he entered the temple of the Klaein, that someone has said that name, _his name_ , out loud.  
  
“Say it again,” he begs.  
  
“Baekhyun.”  
  
It sounds like a spell, and maybe it’s magic, because Baekhyun feels like he’s finally found himself again. No matter what they say, he’s Baekhyun, he’s his own, and this strange, magic boy who lives underground just gave Baekhyun’s name back to him, as a gift. So easily.  
  
“I’m Chanyeol. I come from the Overworld.”  
  
Chanyeol. And Baekhyun. The Overworld. Two names and a secret.  
  
Once upon a time there was a boy who had asked for Baekhyun’s name and gave him back his own. Once upon a time is now. Chanyeol’s smile bends the corners of reality and Baekhyun thinks, stupidly, _Can I come back?_  
  
He blacks out only a moment later.  
  
  
  
  
_Oppressed by love, by pleasure,  
the whole world is fast asleep.  
O waning crescent, what harvest of dreams  
wavers in your pale glow down here!_  
  
O falce di luna calante  
– Gabriele D’Annunzio  
  
  


 

 


	3. ii. revolution / ϕορά

  
_When the low, heavy sky weighs like a lid  
On the groaning spirit, victim of long ennui,  
And from the all-encircling horizon  
Spreads over us a day gloomier than the night;  
  
When the earth is changed into a humid dungeon,  
In which Hope like a bat  
Goes beating the walls with her timid wings  
And knocking her head against the rotten ceiling;  
  
When the rain stretching out its endless train  
Imitates the bars of a vast prison  
And a silent horde of loathsome spiders  
Comes to spin their webs in the depths of our brains,  
  
All at once the bells leap with rage  
And hurl a frightful roar at heaven,  
Even as wandering spirits with no country  
Burst into a stubborn, whimpering cry._  
  
  
  
_The Overworld is ours._  
  
It’s the opening of the Second Book of the Klæin, Exodus.  
  
_The Overworld was ours but it was stolen from us._  
  
It seems simple, but it isn’t.  
  
The Overworld is everything and nothing at all. You can’t touch it, you can’t see it, you can’t even remember it. A legacy of a long gone past, a dream that haunts the people of the Netherworld long after they’ve forgotten what it was about, the answer of all the question humanity is bound to ask itself. _Who are we? Where do we come from? Why are we here? Where are we going?_  
  
Exodus is not a thick book. Among all the books of the Klæin Baekhyun has read – and he’s read them all – it’s possibly the shortest. Less than twenty pages, written in tiny characters by a shaky, weak hand, hundreds of years ago. The beginning of a story of loss, of sin, of fall from heaven. A prologue of doom.  
  
A long time ago, once upon a time, far, far away, humans lived on the surface of the earth. The gods gave them land and sea and sky, the sun, the stars and the moon, and the power to create things beyond our imagination. And create they did. They built cities for themselves, ships to sail the seas and airplanes to sail the skies. They built weapons to use against their enemies and toys to give their kids. They made art and science, philosophy and history and religion, they discovered the unthinkable. They made roads that went to the end of the world and they conquered everything they found until there was nothing left to conquer. They made war and they made love and they were free. They lived under the sun, the stars and the moon.  
  
Until one day, demons rose from the underworld, from their land of darkness and cold, and they fought against humanity for the control of the surface. The demons won and they stole the Overworld. Humans were relegated to the Netherworld, the same wrecked place that demons themselves had sought to flee, leaving humanity only the worst the world had to offer. A magical labyrinth haunted by unthinkable terrors.  
  
In the chaos that followed the exodus, a god rose from darkness. The Unseen, they called him. The-rich-one, the Killer, the Illustrious, The-receiver-of-many and The-giver-of-good-counsel. The One of Many Names. He is the god of the Klæin, son of Time and Earth.  
  
The Unseen gave people magic, so that they could survive underground, where the cold is so cold and the darkness is so dark that no fire can burn through them. He gave them magic fires and magic barriers to keep the Furies away and that’s how the Buried Cities were born. That’s how everything began. That’s how everything ends.  
  
That’s how everything is supposed to be. Forever.  
  
_Who are we?_ We’re only human. _Where do we come from?_ The Overworld. _Why are we here?_ Because the Overworld was stolen from us. _Where are we going?_ Nowhere.  
  
We can just stay here, at the end of everything.  
  
The end of the world.  
  
  
  
  
  


ii. revolution / ϕορά

  
  
  
  


**06**

  
  
Baekhyun sleeps and dreams he is a planet, a tiny little planet, a closed system, turning in perpetual motion around its own little sun. It’s warm and comfortable and he feels safe. He feels like he belongs. Until he extends his hands to touch the sun, like Icarus, and he falls, falls, falls.  
  
He wakes up to darkness – and it’s deep, was it always so deep? – and the sharp poison of cold twisting in his guts for the first time in his life. It takes his breath away. It’s like being born again, choking and kicking against reality for the first time, unable to understand why it’s so scary and terrible.  
  
_Relax, Baekhyun, everything is fine. You’re alive… You’re still alive, are you?_  
  
Blind and fearful like a newborn child, he struggles to emerge from the acute vertigo of hollowness that spreads like an abyss from the center of his chest, and only then his mind catches up with his surroundings. He’s lying on his stomach on a hard mattress. It smells crispy and dirty in a familiar, grounding way. It smells like… Baekhyun’s own bed, in his room, in the dungeons of the temple of the Klæin. He breathes, even if it hurts. He’s alive. He’s in Dakrya. He survived his First Flight.  
  
_But why am I here? How did I get here?_  
  
Even thinking drains his energy. His mind lags, slow and lethargic, thoughts floating in a swamp of dread and nausea. He tries to get up but his entire body screams in pain, as if something is trying to break him from the inside. Maybe he screams. He falls back on the bed, defeated.  
  
The purple light of a magic fire announces someone’s arrival. Dark red tunics, masks carved from the skulls of dead animals. Healers. Baekhyun wants to ask questions but they don’t let him. They put him to sleep. Again. Again. _Again._ He sleeps and he dreams of being asleep.  
  
Baekhyun spends weeks in bed, lying on his stomach and waiting for the wound on his back to settle. It’s a long and tedious process, and Baekhyun spends almost all of it alone, with the only company of his thoughts. None of the Weepers who attend to him utter a single word in his direction when they tend to his wounds. Baekhyun doesn’t want to talk to them anyway.  
  
He doesn’t know what happens outside his room, but, if he focuses and listens closely, he can hear the voice of the temple filtering under his door, whispering stories of everyday life to his ears. Doors slammed open and closed, chants, shuffling and pitter-patter, the clinking of cutlery when it’s time to eat. Dakrya’s single bell counts the time for him when he’s not asleep, but he loses the count as soon as he closes his eyes.  
  
When he sleeps, he doesn’t dream. When he’s awake, the memories come back to him, slowly, with herculean effort. Like salmons darting upriver to reach their ancestral home. Not that Baekhyun has ever seen a salmon, but the metaphor sounds oddly striking in his head, so he doesn’t think about it too much. Like a fish with silver scales, Baekhyun swims against the current of his own mind, trying to find the source of his uneasiness. He burrows his face in the pillow, shivering. For the first time in his life, he feels cold, and he doesn’t know what it means.  
  
The wound on his back heals, slowly. Despite the efforts of the healers, despite the magic of the Hiereus, his sullen, bitter attempts to delete the brand of the maze from Baekhyun’s skin, it scars in a strange, abnormal way. It’s white and lucid, almost like liquid silver was poured inside his back to close the gaping hollow the Fury had left. It shines, like Baekhyun’s eyes, and Baekhyun can see the disgust in the eyes of the Weepers who treat him.  
  
_Cursed two times,_ they seem to whisper. _Bad omen. Doombringer. Monster._  
  
“What happened to Yoona?” he asks one day, out of the blue. He tries to do it easily, nonchalantly, as if he’s not asking about the death of the only person in Dakrya who cared about him. As if he’s not suffering. It’s not like he doesn’t know – it’s not like the memory doesn’t plague him, the guilt a constant weight in his belly, her eyes, her bloody limbs – but he wants to hear it. He needs to define his regret, to build fences about his blame instead of letting it loose, or it’ll end up swallowing him. And then Yoona’s sacrifice will have been in vain.  
  
The healer, her expression unreadable behind the skull mask, turns towards him.  
  
“That Harbinger fell. Their name has been erased and it shall never pronounced again in this Netherworld.” The mask covers her eyes but he can see, from the way she tilts her head, that she’s staring at him. “I will not report you this time, but make sure there will not be a second one. Remember the law, _pais_.”  
  
Baekhyun bites his lips and doesn’t answer. He remembers the law, very well, and how could he ever forget it, when Yoona was the one who taught it to him?  
  
_Remember the law Baekhyun, and remember how to break it._  
  
She was the best teacher, the best mentor. He will never forget the things she taught him, just like he’ll never forget about her.  
  
In the darkness, Baekhyun finds pieces of himself scattered everywhere. He collects them, one by one, and he slowly puts them back where they belong, trying to recompose his soul like a puzzle game. There are still so many grey areas, so many missing tiles, but Baekhyun pulls himself up on his own because no one else will do it for him.  
  
He starts walking again, following the wall with his hand, collapsing on the floor when he’s too tired. His back burns, his legs shake and there’s no one willing to help him. Baekhyun bites his bottom lip when the pain becomes unbearable, but he doesn’t stop. He chases the memory of Yoona’s laughter in the places where they spent time together: the training rooms, the library, the refectory, the dormitories. Her ghost quietly follows Baekhyun while he limps around the temple, trying to regain control of his tired, stiff body. Sometimes, he remembers her alive, with eyes like little stars and long eyelashes. Sometimes, he remembers her dead, laying in pieces on the dirty ground, in a bed of her and Baekhyun’s blood. Sometimes, Baekhyun doesn’t remember her at all, and those are the scariest times.  
  
There are holes in his memory, he realizes. And he feels cold.  
  
What was cold before his First Flight? Just a foreign concept explained in decrepit, frail books. Baekhyun had never felt any cold in his life. What is cold now? A vine, tight around Baekhyun’s chest, on his thighs. A feeling of longing, as if he’s missing something he never knew he needed. Baekhyun doesn’t dream, but when he does, he dreams of warmth and a boy who came from the Overworld, a boy who saved his life in the maze.  
  
(But that’s impossible. The Overworld is far, far away, beyond the Barrier, beyond everything Baekhyun knows. The way is closed, hidden, unseen. No one can travel between the Netherworld and the Overworld. That’s the word of the Klæin and the word of the Klæin is the only truth.)  
  
“How did I come back?” asks Baekhyun to the librarian, a few days before his investiture as a Harbinger. He’s thought about it many times, but he can’t remember. His memories are clear, as if he can see them through a mirror, but only up to Yoona’s death. After that, only delirious dreams of being chased by darkness and being saved by an impossible boy with impossible dimples.  
  
“You really don’t remember?” she answers, a question for a question. She doesn’t seem to believe him, but Baekhyun doesn’t care. Even if he knew, he’d tell everyone he doesn’t remember anyway, out of distrust and the rightful amount of spite.  
  
The librarian looks at him with contempt. She liked Yoona – everyone liked her, as much as a Weeper could like a Harbinger, and now everyone hates Baekhyun for taking her away to somewhere darker, for leaving her behind, for coming back when she didn’t. But the librarian liked Baekhyun too, even if he was cursed and dirty and destined to die. She liked that he liked to read. Sometimes, when he was really hungry but the Hiereus had given order not to feed him, she let him have the leftover rice from the kitchens. Baekhyun doesn’t like her, but he doesn’t hate her as much as he hates all the other Weepers. The feeling seems to be mutual.  
  
“I suppose someone should tell you. The Guard of the Despotes found you,” she says, in the end.  
  
“The Guard? But they can’t leave the city!”  
  
“They didn’t. You appeared in the mines, alone. Almost dead. Good riddance, if you ask me.” Her lip shakes a little when she says it, but Baekhyun doesn’t judge her. The Hiereus though, and the Hiereus says you can’t show sympathy to a cursed child, so she doesn’t. “No one believed you could survive with that kind of wound, but I guess rats like you cling to life with their teeth and claws, don’t you?”  
  
Baekhyun bows and slides away in silence. Something doesn’t add up. Something is wrong with his memories. But it doesn’t really matter, he thinks, pushing his doubts away. Memories are destined to oblivion, like everything else.  
  
When he feels better, during a brief and cold ceremony, Baekhyun is appointed Harbinger of Dakrya. He shakes when they tell him the destination of his journey will be Aganaktein, Yoona’s former city. Yoona’s life never mattered to the Hiereus, nor to the Despotes – no matter how faithfully she served all of them – so it’s natural that they’re already trying to replace her, but it stings. The tears in his eyes sting. Baekhyun stings. Everywhere.  
  
The investiture is a lonesome, pathetic affair. There’s no one to celebrate his survival and there will be no one waiting for him when he’ll come back from his first journey, but it’s better like this. Baekhyun doesn’t want anyone to see him scrambling and failing to fit the big shoes Yoona has left behind for him.  
  
Before the ceremony ends, like a last minute reminder, they finally give Baekhyun his name back. Harbinger Byun Baekhyun of Dakrya, they say, and it’s strange how Baekhyun doesn’t feel relieved, only outraged. That name is not theirs to take and give back. It’s Baekhyun’s, only his own.  
  
That night, when the pain subsides, he starts dreaming.  
  
It’s a strange, contorted dream, fractured and splintered and perfectly logical, like the pieces of a puzzle coming together, fitting perfectly to create a picture that makes no sense. In the dream, the boy from the Overworld – Chanyeol, his name is Chanyeol – says Baekhyun’s name. He makes it sound like it’s precious and important. He makes it sound like, now that he’s said it out loud, no one will be able to take it from Baekhyun, ever again.  
  
Baekhyun wakes up feeling colder than he’s ever felt, and now he knows, now he can remember, where he felt the warmth he’s missing now. (His name was Chanyeol.)  
  
It never happened, he repeats in his mind, night after night, when his scar hurts and the memories haunt him. It never happened.  
  


~

  
  
  
  


**33**

  
  
The palace is silent but the voice of the Ruler echoes in Baekhyun’s mind, opaque and sibylline. _The Daimon_ , he had said. _He needs to get rid of the Daimon, before it's too late. If he doesn’t, the Temple of the Klæin will get rid of both the Daimon and him._  
  
Baekhyun tries to exclude the words, to blow them away like dandelion seeds, but they’re too heavy to fly in the wind. They settle in his lungs instead, like petals of lead, falling with the rain at the bottom of his chest.  
  
What does the Ruler of Pophos know about Daimons? What does he know about the demon trapped in one of Dakrya’s unused mining wells? No one except the Despotes and his most trusted guards was supposed to know about Chanyeol... Panic washes at the shore of Baekhyun's mind, the ringing in his ears following it like an undertow. He bites his lips hard enough to make them bleed and pretends the world is not cracking around him.  
  
Baekhyun is, after all, quite good at pretending everything is alright. It’s what he’s been doing for the past ten years. Pretending he doesn’t feel the cold, pretending he doesn’t fear the darkness, pretending he doesn’t hate the Weepers. Pretending he believes in the teachings of the Klæin. Pretending he's not in love with a demon. Pretending people like him are allowed to have a happy ending. He never stops pretending. He never stops running. (Sometimes he feels like the world will collapse around him if he stops, so he doesn’t. He runs away from the end of the world, and from his own end too.)  
  
Except he needs to stop, this time. _Just once, just for a moment,_ he thinks, mind reeling, palms sweating, legs shaking. He can’t feel anything but the weight of the letter in his messenger bag, burning through the fabric, leaving a hot red imprint on his thigh. He falls against a cold wall behind the bald statue of a former ruler of Pophos, in a little corner of darkness at the end of a narrow, claustrophobic gallery. He takes the letter out and weighs it in his hands.  
  
Dakrya’s letters are always so thin they feel like they’re going to crumble in Baekhyun’s hands, deteriorating into fine dust at the faintest pressure of his fingers. So fragile Baekhyun has to wrap them in cotton handkerchiefs during the journey in the maze, too afraid that the fabric of his bag will rub them raw. Pophos’ letters are heavy instead, thick and solid, elegant. They have a rough and creamy texture, like wealth and prosperity under Baekhyun’s fingers. They look severe, pretentious, haughty. Intimidating.  
  
Baekhyun reads the words on the back of the envelope, convoluted calligraphy in golden and black ink. The wax seal is red where Dakrya’s is usually black. That’s it, that’s all there is to look at. His eyes linger on the letter with a painful intensity, as if they’re trying to see through the thick paper, piercing through the envelope to steal the secrets inside. He shakes from the need to really do it – to know the truth, to put an end to this farce. He almost does it. Almost.  
  
The punishment for a Harbinger who opens and reads a sealed file is death, nothing more and nothing less. There are mitigating circumstances, of course, but Baekhyun has already tried his luck once, a long time ago, and the Despotes wasn’t very pleased with it. He let Baekhyun live, because he’s Baekhyun and he’s faster, stronger, braver. Because he’s the favorite of the phoi. (Because he’s Chanyeol’s favorite, the only one.)  
  
“Favorite or not, you already broke the law once. If you do it again, I will personally make sure it's the last thing you do,” he had said. And Baekhyun didn’t doubt his words.  
  
Except Baekhyun is not really afraid of the Despotes, nor of the Weepers. He’s not afraid of death, either. He doesn’t care about them at all. It’s just that he made a promise, to Chanyeol, and Chanyeol made a promise to him.  
  
_Don’t die. Just don’t die. One day, I will take you with me to the surface, to see the sun. I promise._  
  
(Sometimes, Baekhyun believes Chanyeol’s promise is the only reason he’s still alive.)  
  
In the end, he just puts the letter back where it belongs, inside the messenger bag, and walks away from the palace and its lies.  
  
Youngho is waiting in front of the doors. Baekhyun raises a hand to greet him, but the words die on the tip of his tongue. Under the shaky red lamplights, Youngho appears troubled and uneasy. It’s an instinctive reflex, the one that compels Baekhyun to ask him what just happened.  
  
“Is something wrong?”  
  
Youngho shakes his head, a bit too quickly. “Nothing, nothing really, but we need to go.”  
  
He steals a troubled glance at the empty street, as if waiting for something to happen. There’s a strange tension in the air, a prickle at the back of Baekhyun’s head. It’s the same familiar, unsettling feeling that accompanies him during all his journeys, the sixth sense that saved his life in the maze so many times, and it’s flashing and ringing and telling him that there’s danger in the air. But it’s impossible, right? This is Pophos, not the maze. Pophos is safe.  
  
But Youngho tugs Baekhyun’s black and silver uniform. “We need to go,” he repeats. “Like, right now.” And there’s more than uneasiness in his eyes, there’s a sliver of fear. And now Baekhyun recognizes it, the tension in Youngho’s eyes, the way he looks around warily, his hand disappearing inside the jacket – fingers tightening around a weapon. Now Baekhyun realizes it wasn’t a coincidence, that the soldier chosen to take him to the palace is a former bodyguard.  
  
“Youngho,” he asks, low, “is someone following us?”  
  
Youngho pretends to smile. “Ssssh, act cool,” he says, equally low. And then, even lower, “Don’t worry, we can lose them. Stick close to me.”  
  
“What if we can’t?” he whispers back.  
  
“Then, I feel sorry for them,” says Youngho, and his eyes are hard and a little wild.  
  
He unconsciously walks closer to the guard this time, as if trying to hide in the shadow projected by his tall body. But there are no shadows in Pophos. Too many lights, coming from all directions, annihilating the darkness. Dead lights, soulless lights. Baekhyun misses the phoi like a drowning man needs air. Unlike Pophos’ lights, the phoi cannot lie. The phoi would be able to tell Baekhyun where the danger is, and how to get away from it.  
  
To his utter dismay, Youngho ignores the street they used to come to the Palace and takes the main street instead. “Where are we going?” he whispers.  
  
“We’re taking another route this time.”  
  
“Which route?” he asks, panic gurgling in his throat. He doesn’t like the idea of taking another way. He doesn’t like the idea of not knowing where he is.  
  
“To the Temple,” he says, pointedly ignoring the way Baekhyun goes tense next to him. “Don't worry, I'm not giving you to the Weepers. Remember the celebration I told you about? Half of Pophos is going to be there, and hopefully we’ll be able to sneak away without being seen.”  
  
The city is brighter than ever, like a forest of flashing, blinking and blinding lights. They’re loud and obnoxious, shouting at Baekhyun from everywhere, fireworks of vivid colors exploding behind his eyelids, printing themselves in his mind. He walks in a daze, feeling his head throb and his ears buzz in rhythm with the energy pulsing under the ground. Before he realizes, they’re surrounded by people, a multicolor multitude of faceless people coming from all directions. Someone pushes him and Youngho’s arm is quick to dart around his shoulders before he can fall.  
  
“Don’t fall behind,” Youngho only says, eyes still trained on the streets. “Here we are.”  
  
Baekhyun raises his eyes and has to suppress a shiver. It doesn’t matter which city he’s visiting, because there’s always a temple of the Klæin in every single one of the Buried Cities, the highest common denominator of the cities of the Alliance. And Baekhyun hates them all, with their elegant stonework and their baroque ornaments, marble garlands and trompe-l’œil capitals, something children will point their fingers at during the functions, too amazed by the beauty in front of their eyes, unaware that the temple is ready to swallow them whole if they come too close.  
  
Baekhyun has lived in the dungeons of the temple of Dakrya for the past ten years and he’s seen the other side of the flipped coin. Cut-glass mirrors, old-fashioned paintings barring the road and staring at you with malicious eyes. False doors, fake columns, painted perspectives, false exits. A maze within a maze, designed to always make you feel lost. And Baekhyun doesn’t like feeling lost.  
  
“Are you sure there isn’t another way?” he asks, but Youngho’s reply is lost in the racket.  
  
The flux of people increases when they arrive under the temple, the crowd so thick and excited that not even Baekhyun’s Harbinger uniform can open a path for them. His colors, black and silver, simply disappear, swallowed by the commotion, the countless hands, mouths, elbows in his sternum, by the confusion, the impatience and, above everything else, the tension emanating from the temple.  
  
It’s suffocating. And kind of ironic, because Baekhyun spent years wishing he was just like everyone else, wishing people wouldn’t give him a wide berth and murmur prayers whenever they caught sight of him – _look, the Harbinger, the bad omen_. Too used to physical contact as a child, he craved it when he became a Harbinger, but now it only makes him feel caged. Youngho pulls him closer before he drowns in this human river of barefoot people.  
  
“Come on, we’re almost there,” he says. Holding Baekhyun’s wrist tightly, he starts navigating the crowd with the help of his height, leading them towards a lateral street where they disappear, unnoticed, stopping to catch their breath for a moment in a little back alley behind the temple.  
  
Baekhyun leans against a dirty wall, trying to calm his raging heart. It takes him a moment to realize that the dark, bare building in front of him is the same temple he saw before, on the main street. But if the front was covered in elegant carves, expensive marble and golden decorations, the back side looks almost naked, like they didn’t have enough money to cover everything in gold like they did with the front. It says a lot about the cult of the Klæin.  
  
Youngho takes a long look at the alley and curses. Baekhyun can see a flash of metal under his jacket. He thought Youngho was carrying a dagger, but...  
  
“Is that a sword?” he asks, before he can stop himself.  
  
Youngho turns to look at him, startled.  
  
“It’s a _xiphos_ , a short word. No, wait,” he frowns, “that’s not the point.”  
  
“That’s not the point at all,” Baekhyun half-whispers, half-cries. He can feel panic gurgle in his throat. “What the hell is going on?”  
  
“Something happened, while you were talking to the Ruler. You’re no longer safe now.”  
  
Baekhyun chokes a hysterical laugh because, since when has he been safe? Youngho looks at him as if he’s crazy and Baekhyun laughs even harder.  
  
“I think...” He stops, curses, looks at Baekhyun again. “Oh, fuck, I don’t even know if I’m supposed to tell you or not. You look like you’re about to crumble already...”  
  
“Youngho!” he says, raising his voice and shutting the boy up completely. “Seo Youngho,” he says again, softer now that he has his complete attention. “You have to tell me what is going on, and you have to tell me now. Because the Ruler also said something to me, and if it’s true, I have to go back to Dakrya immediately.”  
  
Youngho looks at him, clearly at a loss of words, unable to deal with this… whatever this is. At least Baekhyun isn’t the only one who doesn’t know what to do.  
  
“Wait, did the Ruler say something to you?”  
  
“He gave me a message for the Despotes.”  
  
“The old man _knew_ this was going to happen?” Youngho shakes his head, letting out a strange, frustrated noise. “Listen, there’s something going on between Dakrya and Pophos and a whole lot of other cities, ok? But we can’t talk about it right now, Baekhyun, they’re still looking for you.”  
  
“Who is looking for me?”  
  
“The Weepers of the Klæin. The letter you were delivering on behalf of the Temple of Dakrya, do you remember? The one the captain was supposed to take to the Temple of Pophos… He opened it…”  
  
“Donghae opened a sealed letter of the Temple?” He can’t keep the horror out of his voice. “We’re fucked, we’re all fucked, I can’t believe you people, he just condemned me to death.”  
  
“No, he didn’t. He didn’t, Baekhyun. You were already destined to die. The letter… It talked about a plan to get rid of the Despotes of Dakrya. It said to kill you too, since they can’t be sure of your loyalty.”  
  
Baekhyun’s eyes flash silver, this time in fear. His web of secrets wobbles in the wind, useless. This time, he seems to have been caught in a bigger, more dangerous net, and no matter how much he thrashes, he can’t break free.  
  
“It doesn’t make sense, the Weepers have no reason to attack the Despotes. It would be a suicide attack,” he says, panic growing in his chest.  
  
“They have found a way. They know something that your Despotes has kept hidden for ten years.”  
  
Baekhyun’s heart stops. The words of the Ruler mock him from a great distance. _He needs to get rid of the Daimon. If he doesn’t, the Temple of the Klæin will get rid of both the Daimon and him._  
  
“Word is that Dakrya is hiding a demon.”  
  


~

  
  
  
  


**07**

  
  
Baekhyun falls and scrapes his hands and knees. He tastes millions years old dust and his own blood. He doesn’t swear. He used to, back when he still lived with his mother and brother, and the Weepers have tried to beat the habit out of him, but they’ve only managed to stop the words from leaving his mouth, not his mind. What really stopped him was the maze, and the fear that his foul words could really summon something horrible from the darkness. Something with many hands and teeth and skin white and saggy like a corpse.  
  
Baekhyun doesn’t swear. He merely stands, again, and the phoi seethe around him, a mute scolding for being reckless and walking ahead without taking his time to check the condition of the road.  
  
“I know,” he says, in a whisper that echoes against the crystals falling from the walls like tears of the stone. _I know I know I know._  
  
The phoi flare against the ceiling of the cave, and Baekhyun can only stare at their communication attempts, helpless. They don’t seem angry, not scared, they seem… it’s not nervousness, it’s some kind of silent energy, like they’re waiting for something to happen, but they still don’t know what it will be.  
  
Baekhyun frowns, a little wary, heart beating like the drums signaling the end of the shift in the mines in Dakrya. In the maze, safety is just an illusion, a trap. No matter how many times he’s already walked the thirty-eight hours that separate Dakrya from Aganaktein, he can’t shake the feeling that something horrible is always going to happen to him.  
  
He stops, deciding to look at his map instead. From the messenger bag, he takes out a big roll of brand new paper, strong and exceptionally white. It’s Baekhyun’s map - not really, it belongs to Dakrya and Baekhyun is just the mapmaker - and he received it together with his uniform and his name the day of his investiture. With a black roll of charcoal, he tries to draft the shape of the corridor he’s standing in right now.  
  
He knows he shouldn’t stop in the middle of the maze, but he does it anyway, because he’s afraid he’ll forget the exact position if he stops. He just got here by chance, what if he can’t find his way back? He nods, and keeps drawing.  
  
That is, really, his first mistake. His second is inexperience.  
  
Baekhyun knows about Stranger-places –Yoona and a couple of other senior Harbingers warned him about them – but he never believed they existed because, come on, magical warping portals? Totally a legend. Until they aren’t anymore.  
  
He’s looking at the map and admiring the little black lines spreading through the white surface like the tributaries of a river, when suddenly the ground starts glimmering, the walls start shimmering, and everything around Baekhyun explodes in sparkles.  
  
It takes him a moment to remember. A portal, had said Yoona, that can lead you anywhere in the maze. It could take you to a nest of Furies or to the doors of a city or to somewhere no one else has ever been. Stranger-places are unpredictable in their destination and predictable in their location. If you know where they are, you can avoid them, but Baekhyun doesn’t know anything.  
  
Yoona would’ve known. She was an experienced Harbinger, meticulous, prudent, the kind of Harbinger who writes down everything in her map, Stranger-places, nests of Furies, poetry she had invented during the long hours of loneliness she spent in the maze. But her map was lost when her soul was lost, deep down, in the darkest levels of the maze, where it’s so cold Baekhyun’s breath creates puffs of white clouds mid-air and horrible, hungry things hunt with the favor of darkness. Baekhyun has thought about coming down to look for her body and belongings – she deserves at least that, doesn’t she? – but he’s never been able to go back down there.  
  
It doesn’t matter now, because Baekhyun has stepped on a Stranger-place and in a moment his entire life flashes in front of his eyes. The only thing he can do is to pray, pray, pray that his destination is not the hut of a Fury. He wants at least the comfort of a clean, painless death. He doesn’t want to be eaten by nightmares.  
  
He holds his breath and tries to make sense of the way the world is shifting around him, the maze rattling and shuddering as it dissolves in tiny pearlescent fragments. The ground beneath his feet suddenly vanishes and he precipitates in the darkness, like a meteor, like an asteroid sucked by a black hole, like a falling star.  
  
When the glow fades away and the world stops spinning, when his feet finally touch the ground again, Baekhyun opens his eyes to an almost familiar face, worried and relieved at the same time, and the striking awareness that their first meeting wasn’t a dream. Miracles do exist. They’re warm and handsome and they look at you and say, “Oh, you’re back.”  
  
Baekhyun blinks, unsure whether to believe that this is happening again, for real. For real. He just stands there, his whole being frozen, and then the boy - Chanyeol – stops plucking the strings of his lyre, takes his hand to help him and, _oh_ , that’s it. What Baekhyun had been missing until he met Chanyeol for the first time. Warmth. Flooding through Baekhyun’s veins, making him feel so abnormal, so wrong. So lacking.  
  
“Oh,” he says back. “Oh. You’re real.”  
  
He _is_ real, permanent and stubborn in his existence in a way Baekhyun will never aspire to be. In front of him, Baekhyun feels unsubstantial. He takes a few steps back, suddenly scared of his own want.  
  
“I am. I am real.”  
  


~

  
  
  
  


**34**

  
  
Fear sings like a nightingale in Baekhyun’s chest, trapped in the cage of his ribs. If Baekhyun had a key, he’d open it and let his heart fly away, free to sing his dread to someone else. He doesn’t have a key, so he raises a hand to his heart and tries to calm its frantic song.  
  
“Word is that Dakrya is hiding a demon,” says Youngho, and Baekhyun’s world turns upside down. His blood runs cold, colder than it ever has since the day he learnt what cold was. He almost falls, but he pushes Youngho away when the boy tries to help him.  
  
“Baekhyun, Baekhyun, please. I know you’re upset but... But we really need to go. They haven’t thought of looking for us here, for now, but they will, any moment now… We need to go.”  
  
Baekhyun still doesn’t move. Chanyeol. Chanyeol is in danger and Baekhyun is here, an entire maze away from him. “They’re gonna kill him,” he says, his voice broken.  
  
“Him? Wait, you know the demon?” Before Baekhyun can answer, a sudden noise startles them both and Youngho takes hold of Baekhyun’s wrist. “Listen, I’ll tell you everything, so please, please follow me, ok?”  
  
This time, Baekhyun lets himself be pulled away. Youngho takes a last look at the main street, behind them, and then dives into the labyrinth of little alleys and cramped streets that unrolls from the Acropolis to the base of the mountain with Baekhyun at his heels. They go down and down, leaving behind the confused mess of elegant houses, colorful ads blinking from every corner and silent, desolated, tacky shops. They only stop to breathe when they reach the edge of the Acropolis, where the rich district starts to blend with the older, more traditional houses of the old district.  
  
“Here,” he says, pointing to a shaky staircase carved on naked stone that goes down until the base of the mountain. It’s steep and slippery, but Youngho points at it and says, “Fastest way to go down.”  
  
Even in his haze, Baekhyun studies the streets, memorizing every turn. Pophos is built on a mountain, but the power line only covers one side of it. The dark side is a confused mess of popular houses, garbage and narrow, wet alleys. The children, who look as hungry and ragged as Dakrya’s ones, play outside all the times because it’s too dark inside their houses. They’re tiny houses, dug by people in the side of the mountains, little cells of a giant beehive inhabited by tired men, screaming women and weeping infants.  
  
“Where are we going?” Baekhyun finally finds the courage to ask, as they leave the poor districts and head towards an abrupt cliff only inhabited by moss and wind. They’re already close to the feet of the mountain, on the opposite side of the Golden Doors.  
  
Youngho mutters, “Almost there,” and pulls Baekhyun forward until they find a small, hidden path among the rocks. If Baekhyun focuses, he can hear the sound of water, the cry of the Cocytus. They must be close to the walls of the city, to the barrier.  
  
Slowly, all the lights die down, leaving them to walk in a deep, thick darkness. It’s not a problem for Baekhyun, but, after the third time he trips, Youngho takes a red globe out of his bag. When he touches it, a flame of magic fire erupts from it, lighting up the path and the remains of an abandoned, ghost city around them. “People used to live here, in the past,” he gestures to the ruins of old houses around them, “but they all moved out because the power line doesn’t reach this side. Everyone wanted to go to where the light was.”  
  
_Like moths,_ thinks Baekhyun. _We’re all lured into the light. Light makes us feel safe. But what kind of light is this?_  
  
“This land belongs to the family of the Ruler, but no one ever comes here.” He takes a deep breath. “I think we can talk freely now,” he says, eyeing Baekhyun with some sort of apology in his eyes.  
  
Baekhyun nods, swats Youngho’s hand away and punches him, all in succession. Youngho doesn’t even see it coming - he’s probably not expecting it from Baekhyun, who’s way shorter than him, way thinner, who looks like he would fly away on the wings of a strong wind. Baekhyun knows how he looks now, like the curse in his eyes is the only thing still keeping him alive, like a ghost, but what Youngho doesn’t know is that they’re all like ghosts, living in a world of nightmares and terrors. And Baekhyun is the one who’s met them all, while Youngho is just a little kid playing soldier in a city of gold.  
  
He slams his knee down onto Youngho’s chest, hard, and puts a dagger to his throat while he coughs. Youngho’s eyes widen when he sees the light of the magic fire reflected on the blade. He didn’t even know Baekhyun owned a dagger. (Harbingers can’t own anything.)  
  
“You will tell me what you know and you will tell me fast, or I swear on everything I hold dear, I will hurt you.”  
  
Youngho’s Adam’s apple jumps comically, terribly close to the sharp edge of the knife, and he exhales. “Ok, ok, I will tell you, everything okay? Just please calm down, it was the only way I had to make me follow me and…”  
  
“How. Do. You. Know. About the demon?”  
  
“Because I told him,” says a third voice. This time, Baekhyun is the one feeling the cold kiss of a blade at his neck, right on his jugular. He can keenly feel his own pulse against the cold metal, as blood travels faster, carrying adrenaline and fear in its wake. “Please let him go, Baekhyun.”  
  
The hand holding the blade is soft, tender. It’s not the hand of someone who could really hurt Baekhyun, of this he is sure. He could turn back and fight, and maybe he could win, but leaving Youngho unattended would be even more dangerous. The boy has combat training, and Baekhyun doesn’t. Sure, he’s pretty good at it, and Chanyeol taught him some tricks, but he’s painfully aware that taking Youngho down was a stroke of luck that won’t happen again.  
  
Baekhyun closes his eyes. He doesn’t know if he can do this, but Chanyeol... Chanyeol could be in danger and he needs to go to him.  
  
Youngho sees past him and his eyes widen, “Ten, be careful!” but Baekhyun has already turned towards his assailant, blocking the knife pointed at his throat with his bare hands - he barely register the pain but he feel the wetness of his own blood trickling down his forearm - and turning his own knife, previously at Youngho’s throat, against the newcomer.  
  
He’s so fast not even Youngho can try to stop him. The other boy doesn’t even have a chance. Baekhyun’s knife rips through his defenses and finds the tender skin of his neck in less than a heartbeat. It could’ve easily slashed his throat open, just like that, but the blade stops, only a hair’s width of the boy’s pulse. Baekhyun blinks, staring at the eyes of the boy in front of him.  
  
Wide eyes, dark eyes, a moon scythe shining at the bottom of a black well. Silver staring into silver.  
  
“Who the hell are you?” he asks, mesmerized. His right hand falls and the dagger hits the ground with a dull thump. The other hand, in the middle of losing blood and sensibility, falls too, and he can only stand dazed in front of an equally dazed boy, his own blood trickling down his fingertips while the blade the newcomer is still holding shakes between them. He barely realizes when Youngho gets up to his feet and takes both of the blades in his hands, collecting Baekhyun’s from the ground and carefully extracting the other from the vice-like grip of the third boy. Baekhyun doesn’t care that, for the first time in years, he’s not carrying a weapon. The boy in front of him is a Harbinger. There’s no way Baekhyun would ever hurt another Harbinger.  
  
The Harbinger takes Baekhyun’s bloody hand and whines, a little terrified.  
  
“I’m sorry, I’m really sorry, I didn’t want to do this, I… I’ve wanted to meet you for such a long time. I’m Ten, and I just came back from Dakrya.”  
  


~

  
  
  
  


**08**

  
  
“But how can you be real?”  
  
Chanyeol, sitting across him on the other side of the cave, shrugs. The long chains coiled around him, ending in shackles at his wrists and ankles, rattle at the movement and settle down with a flash of gold.  
  
“I could ask you the same question, but I already know the answer.”  
  
Baekhyun takes a few tentative steps towards the chained boy, following the intricate tangle of golden rings with his eyes and only daring to step even closer when he realizes all the chains are secured to a thick iron ring hanging from the walls of the cave.  
  
Chanyeol looks at him, hard and fearless, challenging Baekhyun, daring him to be scared. He is, just a little. Despite the heavy restraints, Chanyeol looks more dangerous than everything Baekhyun has ever seen. _This is a boy who can make monsters run away,_ Baekhyun remembers.  
  
“You weren’t chained the last time we met,” he says, tentatively.  
  
“No one knew I was here the last time we met,” answers Chanyeol. “But I was stupid. I wandered too close to one of the cities and I was caught, and now I’m trapped here.”  
  
He was wandering. That means he can walk in the maze without dying. Which, Baekhyun supposes, makes sense, since in the hazy memories he recovered from the day of his First Flights, Chanyeol had sent a Fury away just by glaring at it.  
  
“Why are you chained?” he asks. “Are you dangerous?”  
  
Chanyeol cocks his head, laughing to himself. “Do I look dangerous?”  
  
“A little. You look… different.”  
  
“Oh, I am.”  
  
Baekhyun doesn’t know what he’s doing. He knows what he should be doing. Leaving. Turning on his heels, running, running, running away from this person who looks like the only real figure in a mirror maze. He can recognize the seals of Dakrya on the chains, a clear sign that Baekhyun should not get involved with this person. If someone finds out he’s been talking to a prisoner he will be punished. He could be executed.  
  
“You look different too,” says Chanyeol. “None of the other people I’ve met down here have eyes quite like yours.”  
  
Baekhyun’s hands shoot up to cover his eyes, feeling suddenly self-conscious.  
  
“No, don’t cover them,” Chanyeol says, a little wistfully. “They’re so pretty.”  
  
“They… They’re not pretty,” answers Baekhyun, with the thinnest voice he can manage.  
  
“But they are.” Chanyeol looks at him with wide eyes, a little mesmerized, and Baekhyun feels warmth, again, burning in his face, in his neck, flushing the skin pink. “There’s silver in them, can’t you see? They’re so precious.”  
  
“No, it’s… It’s a waning moon. It means I’ll die young.”  
  
And Chanyeol laughs, a deep, booming sound that bounces on the walls of the well and comes back multiplied, as if one hundred Chanyeols were laughing at Baekhyun. “Who told you something that stupid?”  
  
Baekhyun doesn’t even know what he’s holding his breath for, if it’s for Chanyeol’s words, his smile, his entire existence. He just stands there, fifteen years old and scared and covered in darkness, his eyes big and wide and shining like stars, so brilliant in the eternal night of the maze. Starstruck.  
  
He’s never even seen a star, not once in his life, but he’s sure this is the feeling he would feel when presented with something so big, so bright, so impossible to ignore once you see it. This is what the scientist he read about in the Klæin, that Copernicus, must have felt when he realized that the entire sky doesn’t revolve around us, but we’re revolving around our personal star in a perfect, perpetual motion.  
  
He hadn’t realized he had come closer, but suddenly he finds himself standing in front of Chanyeol, looking at the moon scythe in his eyes reflected in Chanyeol’s own, dark eyes.  
  
“It’s not a waning moon.” Chanyeol’s voice is rough, fascinated and too close. “Can’t you see? It’s the sun. You’ve got a sun in your eyes. The moon is just covering it. It’s an eclipse.”  
  
It’s a revolution. Baekhyun didn’t know he had been waiting for this, for someone to come and tell me that it’s all wrong, the Klæin is wrong, the Weepers are wrong, Dakrya is wrong. This entire world is wrong. But Baekhyun, oh, Baekhyun is not wrong.  
  
“Are you really a demon?” he asks, voice shaking, because he needs to hear it from him. He needs Chanyeol’s existence to prove the Klæin wrong.  
  
“Maybe.” He looks at his hands. They’re big and, Baekhyun knows it well, warm. Curious. The Klæin talks about evil demons, creatures with claws and fangs and wings and tails, more animals than people, but Chanyeol is tall and devastatingly handsome and he has lonely eyes.  
  
“Are you an angel?” he asks, tilting his head towards Baekhyun, studying him with the hint of a smile on his lips.  
  
“An angel? I don’t- What is an angel?”  
  
Chanyeol chuckles. “Angels and demons, I thought you would know. So you’re not an angel, right? What about a star?” continues Chanyeol. “A falling star. Are you a falling star, Baekhyun?”  
  
Falling stars. Oh, Baekhyun has read about those, in the Klæin. He knows about meteors, and asteroids sucked in by black holes, supernovae exploding in a sky that doesn’t belong to him, a sky that he’ll never see. Stars fall during hot summer nights.  
  
“I’m just a Harbinger,” he says. “A Harbinger of Dakrya.”  
  
“Nice to meet you again, Baekhyun, Harbinger of Dakrya. I’m Chanyeol and I don’t know if I’m a demon, but I do come from the Overworld.”  
  
That’s impossible. The Klæin clearly says that it’s impossible. There’s a barrier between the Netherworld and the Overworld and nothing can cross it. Nothing. Not humans, not Furies, not even demons. Maybe not even the gods.  
  
And yet, Baekhyun can believe - Baekhyun wants to believe. Baekhyun has been waiting his entire life for someone to come and tell him that there’s a world beyond the maze and it’s not out of reach. That the Klæin is wrong. That everything is wrong.  
  
“How did you get here? The Klæin says it’s impossible.”  
  
“And you believe this Klæin?”  
  
Baekhyun doesn’t know what to answer. He doesn’t think he can answer. The Klæin is everything he knows, everything he has. (But Harbingers cannot have anything of their own, so, in the end, who cares?)  
  
“It’s not that I believe in the Klæin, it’s just that there’s nothing else to believe in.” It’s just that, if you don’t believe, you’re as good as dead. Blasphemy is a serious crime in Dakrya, where the Hiereus of the Temple of the Klæin can whip a boy for days just for looking at him in the eyes.  
  
“Then believe this, I don’t know what this Klæin is, but I arrived here on my own two legs, to look for something. And I won’t leave until I’ve found it.”  
  
They’re close, so close, and Baekhyun thinks about fire – not magic fires, cold and spooky, but real fires, the one described in some of the books of the Klæin. He thinks about fire and moths, and how he was supposed to be afraid of demons because they are dangerous and cruel and the root of all evil, how he was supposed to stay away from the business of Dakrya and its prisoners, how he was supposed to be far, far from here, on the other side of the maze, delivering a letter to Aganaktein. And yet here he is, like a moth lured by indifferent, impervious fire. He and Chanyeol are so close he can almost touch him – he’s dying to touch him, because since Chanyeol has first touched him Baekhyun hasn’t been able to stop shivering.  
  
“And what are you looking for?” he asks, only a breath between them. Chanyeol’s eyes are their own maze and Baekhyun doesn’t have a map, he doesn’t have a light to find his way. He only has himself.  
  
Chanyeol doesn’t think about it. He looks at Baekhyun. They’re both lost.  
  
“I can’t remember.”  
  


~

  
  
  
  


**35**

  
  
There’s a painful familiarity in the way Youngho looks at the boy named Ten. It’s both hopeful and wistful, full of wonder and regret. Youngho is looking at the only light of his life and at the same time he’s expecting it to disappear someday, to go to a place from where it will never come back. It’s the same way Baekhyun looks at Chanyeol when he thinks the other boy is not looking. It’s the same way he likes to think Chanyeol looks at him, even if he’s just deluding himself.  
  
“You came from Dakrya?” he asks again, incredulous. “It doesn’t make sense, I am Dakrya’s messenger. Why would you even need to go... there...” The question dies on his lips, only to be reborn again in another form. “You’re an illegal Harbinger, aren’t you? The Temple doesn’t know you’re sending letters to Dakrya. You... You’re a spy.”  
  
“Not exactly.” He shrugs. “Kinda.”  
  
Ten has a strange accent Baekhyun has never heard. It’s airy and it drags all the vowels a little more than Baekhyun does. It’s not difficult to understand, only foreign. He extends his hands and Baekhyun takes it, almost automatically. Ten’s palm is not warm, but it’s not cold either, and it gives Baekhyun that little shook of energy he always receives when he’s talking to another Harbinger, their energies mingling together in a sort of ancient recognition.  
  
“Listen, Ten, I don’t really have time for this, I need to leave as soon as possible. Youngho told me the Temple is trying to get rid of the Despotes and there could be a civil war soon, I can’t stay here.”  
  
Ten and Youngho exchange a quick look, before they turn towards Baekhyun again.  
  
“You can’t leave,” Ten explains. “Not yet.”  
  
He doesn’t let go of Baekhyun’s forearm. He holds even tighter. Youngho, sitting next to them and very busy bandaging Baekhyun’s hand, wounded after its close encounter with Ten’s dagger, shakes his head. “Everyone is looking for you right now. Every single Weeper of the city, and guess where they’ll go? At the Golden Doors.”  
  
“But I _need to_ leave!” he exclaims. He tries to get up, frustrated, and Youngho pushes him down. Baekhyun swats his hand away.  
  
“We won’t keep you here against your wishes, but we must wait for the captain to come back first. He knows a way to let you out without being seen. Then you can run away and do whatever you want to do. In the meanwhile, stay with us for a moment. You said you had a lot of questions, now it’s the right time to ask.”  
  
Baekhyun sits down, again. As much as he hates it, Youngho is right, he can’t leave like this. He purses his lips, feeling angrier than he should. “Then, since I’m here, I think you can start to explain.”  
  
“Where do I start?” says Ten.  
  
“From the beginning, I guess.”  
  
Ten licks his lips. He suddenly looks nervous and the accent appears again, thicker than ever. “I don’t know where to start, Baekhyun. Can I call you Baekhyun, right? I heard so much about you. You’re kind of a legend among us.”  
  
“Who is us?” asks Baekhyun, ignoring the part where a strange kid has just called him a legend.  
  
“Harbingers who aren’t controlled by the Klæin. There’s me, Minhyung in Eleos, and Donghyuck in Lype, maybe? And a guy named Jaehyun, but I’ve never met him. We’re all cursed children.”  
  
Youngho finally stops fussing with Baekhyun’s hand. He ties the loose ends of the bandage in a pretty ribbon on his palm and gestures for both him and Ten to sit down with him. Baekhyun shushes him and waits for Ten to continue.  
  
“I was born here, in Pophos, and four of my brothers and sisters were chosen by the moon and taken to the temple. They never came back from their First Flights, none of them. Not strong enough, said the Weepers.” There’s no rage in his face and his eyes don’t darken as he says it. On the contrary, the memory makes them go soft and unfocused for a moment, as if lost in an old fairytale, while his face relaxes into a tiny smile.  
  
Baekhyun knows the story, he’s heard it many times from other passing messengers. Pophos hasn’t had a Harbinger since Hyukjae’s death, more than fifteen years ago. They’ve tried, many and many times, sending boys who weren’t ready nor properly trained, sometimes not even powerful enough. The curse of the moon is not always the same. It’s stronger in some children and weaker in others. Normally, the weak children are sent inside the maze anyway. If they come back, they’re Harbingers and if they don’t, they’re sacrifices.  
  
“My mom didn’t want to hand me too to them, we didn’t know what to do. Then Youngho helped us,” he says, tilting his head towards the taller boy – and oh, does that make him happy, and proud, he lights up at the mere sound of his name on Ten’s lips. “He was already working for the Ruler. It’s a family business, his sister also serves in the palace and his father was a special guard too, so Youngho lived there. And he met Captain Lee Donghae, the nephew of the Ruler, and Guardian of the Golden Doors, and he told him about me. He risked his life, you know?”  
  
Youngho nods and beams at the same time and Baekhyun wants to roll his eyes at him. Kids nowadays.  
  
“My mom was hiding me at home, but it was too dangerous, so the Captain took me here, to the dark side of the mountain, and he introduced me to Minyoung and Donghyuck, who came from Apistein. Apparently, the Captain has been exchanging private mails with the regent of Lype and the queen of Apistein for a few years. Minyoung and Donghyuck taught me everything I know about being a Harbinger.”  
  
Baekhyun frowns. He knows Lype, but he’s never heard of a city called Apistein.  
  
“You gave me your beginning. But I want _the_ beginning. What happened? What is happening?”  
  
“Revolution happened,” says Youngho, looking up with serious eyes. “On the other side of the maze, a place I can’t even picture in my mind, the queen of a Buried City called Apistein has overthrown the Temple of the Klæin and claimed power for herself. There was a battle, I think, but she was the queen and she had an army. The temple only had a few hundred years of tradition and old priests and they lost. The cult of the Klæin no longer exists in Apistein. Deleted, cancelled. The building has been burned to the ground and all the Weepers are dead.”  
  
“There’s not such a city in the maze,” says Baekhyun, breathless. He’s studied them all, the cities who are and the cities who were, but he never found a place called Apistein. He never even heard that name in his life.  
  
“Because it’s being deleted from the maps, of course. It’s a secret. The Temple doesn’t want us to know about its existence. They simply destroyed the letter and decided to kill the Harbinger that delivered it to protect.”  
  
“If it’s a secret, how come do you know it?”  
  
“Because,” says another voice, and Baekhyun turns to greet, once again, Captain Lee Donghae, “that Harbinger told me everything. He told me this secret before he died for it.”  
  
  


~

  
  
  
  


**09**

  
  
Baekhyun lives with fear hidden in his throat, hiding his secrets under his, where no one would ever think about looking. He must be careful though, to not let them run away when he opens his mouth to answer innocent questions. Dangerous secrets are the easy to lose.  
  
“You have been taking a long time to complete your missions,” says the Hiereus, frowning behind his golden mask. There’s not any particular inflection in his voice, but Baekhyun knows even the most innocent words hide an ugly reprimand and usually a punishment. That’s what the temple has always been to him.  
  
“I am still young and inexperienced. I’m trying my best,” he says, with an insincere, impatient bow. His hands shake nervously and he hides them behind his back.  
  
The Hiereus keeps talking but Baekhyun zones out for most of it, only resurfacing towards the end. The Hiereus has turned towards the columns facing the Beacon, and he’s staring at the residence of the Despotes in clear distaste. Now, the Deacon is speaking to Baekhyun.  
  
“Harbinger Byun Baekhyun, remember your duties. Do only what you have to do. Find the fastest way to Aganaktein and come back as fast as you can. Do not deviate. Do not wander.” The Deacon is short and stern, not intimidating at all, unlike the Hiereus. “Remember, the more time you spend in the maze, the earlier you will die.”  
  
Baekhyun grinds his teeth silently and bows again.  
  
The maze consumes the curse, say the Weepers. Nonsense, says Chanyeol. Pure, utter nonsense.  
  
“How can you really believe all these lies?” he asks, snorting, as if Baekhyun is a gullible child who doesn’t understand anything.  
  
Baekhyun blushes and changes the topic, but when he comes back to Dakrya he sneaks into the room of one of the healers and stares at himself in the only mirror he can find in the temple. To his relief, the cycles pass but the amount of silver in his eyes doesn’t change.  
  
He tries not to listen to the malicious words of the Weepers and the poisonous remarks of the Hiereus. As soon as he can, he slips outside the city, walking fast and quietly, dreaming of the moment he’ll meet Chanyeol.  
  
For all the time he spent looking for him, Baekhyun would have never imagined Chanyeol lived right under his feet, in an old mining well under the city of Dakrya. It only takes a couple of hours to climb down the crevices surrounding the old mines and reach the ruins of an even older city, a demon city. That’s where Chanyeol waits, only a couple of meters away from Dakrya’s barrier.  
  
There must be a hidden path inside the mountain that allows the Despotes to come and visit the prisoner, but every time Baekhyun has met him Chanyeol was alone, playing his lyre like it was his only anchor, keeping him from getting lost in a stormy sea.  
  
The only music Baekhyun has ever heard in Dakrya were the chants of the Weepers during rituals and functions, the siren signaling the end of the shifts in the mines and drums, in the darkness, dictating the rhythm of work in the greenhouses. Chanyeol’s hands fly on the strings of the lyre and music rises from the little instrument, filling the room with gold. Baekhyun forgets to breathe.  
  
“You came back again,” Chanyeol says, raising his eyes to meet Baekhyun’s, his fingers still unconsciously plucking the strings of the lyre, like they don’t need his attention to produce music. Like they haven’t done anything else for a long time.  
  
It’s difficult to know what Chanyeol is thinking. There are good days when he’s Baekhyun’s best friend and bad days when even getting close to him is difficult. His face is unreadable and sometimes he watches Baekhyun with an intensity that scares him, but not today. Today Chanyeol smiles and greets Baekhyun with a cascade of cheerful notes and Baekhyun preens, waving awkwardly.  
  
“You shouldn’t come here,” says Chanyeol, like he always does, but he scoots towards the side to make space for Baekhyun. Only a few months ago, this closeness would’ve been impossible. Back when Chanyeol was still a demon and not just _Chanyeol_ , Baekhyun would’ve hesitated, looking at Chanyeol with big, confused eyes. Now, he simply plops next to the chained boy. They sit side by side, and Baekhyun eats his bread. He offers some to Chanyeol too, but the boy refuses, like he always does.  
  
“Won’t you starve, someday?” asks Baekhyun, between mouthfuls of rice.  
  
“No, I don’t think so.” To Baekhyun’s displeasure, he puts the lyre away and lets himself fall on his back to stare at the ceiling of the cave, where phoi are amassing at a scary speed. “To be honest, I don’t think I can die in this place. I don’t even know whether the people of the Netherworld could ever hurt me. I mean, they could try, and of course they did try, but with no results.”  
  
Baekhyun doesn’t want to ask what Chanyeol means. He knows the Despotes wants to know how Chanyeol has managed to come down here, where he comes from, if he knows a way to survive in the maze. But Chanyeol, like he’s always told Baekhyun, has none of those answers. He survives in the maze because he doesn’t belong there, just like he doesn’t belong in Dakrya. He doesn’t eat, doesn’t sleep, doesn’t bleed, just like a ghost. Except, in his presence, Baekhyun is the one feeling like a ghost, constantly cold, constantly seeking Chanyeol’s warmth and light.  
  
“You still don’t remember anything?” he asks.  
  
Chanyeol shakes his head. “Not at all. I know I’m supposed to look for something, but I should find a way to get rid of these shackles first.” He stares at Baekhyun. “You don’t happen to know where they keep the keys, right?”  
  
Baekhyun doesn’t know. Maybe the Despotes has them. Maybe the Hiereus has them. Although Baekhyun doubts Chanyeol would still be alive if the leader of the Temple of the Klæin knew of his existence. Chanyeol poses too big of a threat to the orthodoxy of the Klæin. Whoever has the keys, Baekhyun doubts he would be able to steal them without being caught and dying in the process.  
  
“Why don’t they just let you go?” he asks. It’s naive maybe, but Baekhyun is only fifteen years old, too young to understand the graceful subtlety of political games, like webs beaded by dew drops, pretty and lethal at the same time.  
  
“You could ask your Despotes that, the next time you see him, don’t you think?” jokes Chanyeol, instead of giving him a real answer.  
  
Baekhyun snorts. He’s never seen the Despotes. He knows he’s a powerful, ambitious man. And, according to sparse fragments of conversations he’s eavesdropped in the temple, he’s not appreciated by the Weepers of the Klæin. Too greedy, too selfish. Too dangerous.  
  
“I don’t think I’ll ever see him, to be honest. The Hiereus would rather kill me than letting me talk to him personally, you know? He always says he’s nurturing some subversive ideas.”  
  
“This Hiereus person you talk about… He’s the leader of the Temple, isn’t he?” At Baekhyun’s curt nod, he continues. “And he doesn’t like the Despotes?”  
  
“Not really,” replies Baekhyun. Sure, he’s never paid attention to this kind of political games, but he’s heard some things.  
  
“Who’s most powerful in the city? The Despotes or the Hiereus?”  
  
Baekhyun thinks about it. “I don’t know,” he says, feeling ignorant and stupid. “I never thought about it. I’d say the Despotes, because the Despotes controls the mines and the army, but…”  
  
“But?”  
  
But Baekhyun lives in the temple and he knows how strong is the hold of the Weepers on the minds of the people of Dakrya. The life of miners is a life of misery, of eternal work, like a punishment. The Weepers call this kind of hard life an atonement. _We are atoning for our sins,_ he quotes in his head. _We are atoning for being weak and powerless. We are offering our work to the god of the maze, so that one day he’ll open the doors of the Overworld for us again, so that one day we can go home._  
  
It’s not much, but it gives people a reason for their sufferings, but also a future reward if they respect the Unseen. And when you have nothing, even that little hope becomes precious.  
  
“I think the Despotes can’t afford to go against the temple. People would be mad.”  
  
“That’s exactly the point, Baekhyun. The temple is giving people a lie, a beautiful lie to believe in, like a dream. There’s no way the Despotes can do the same, because the temple has been telling this lie for longer than he did, better than he could ever do. So what can he do? Can’t you imagine?”  
  
“Tell them the truth?”  
  
Chanyeol smiles, triumphant. “Exactly, Baekhyun. Exactly.”  
  
“And you have this truth? Is that why he can’t let you go?”  
  
Chanyeol looks away. “He believes I do, yes. Except, I can’t really help him. I can’t remember anything and I still have to find what I'm looking for. Will you help me find it, Baekhyun?” he says, tilting his head and smiling, just smiling.  
  
Baekhyun falls in love for the first time at the bottom of an old, abandoned well. He’s fifteen years old and he doesn’t know what love is, but he falls in love anyway. Chanyeol’s smile is the brightest thing he’s ever seen in his life. But Chanyeol is unimaginably old and wise and powerful, and he only talks with Baekhyun because he only has Baekhyun to talk to. It’s not like he really likes Baekhyun, not in the way Baekhyun likes him.  
  
“I will,” he says, “I promise.”  
  
That makes Chanyeol laugh, at least.  
  
“You’re cute,” he says, and Baekhyun’s heart falls falls falls. Maybe this is what Yoona meant with being in love when you’re too young to be in love. Baekhyun’s heart is a nightingale singing in the cage of his chest, and he’s afraid that if he opens his mouth it’ll fly away and tell Chanyeol everything.  
  
Chanyeol looks at him, as if he’s guessing his feelings.  
  
“Baekhyun,” he says, “it’s late. Shouldn’t you go now?”  
  
Baekhyun gets up, suddenly, head shaking and cheeks burning.  
  
“I’ll come back soon,” he says, “is that alright?”  
  
“It’s not. You know that well, you’re not supposed to come here. What if someone sees you? I don’t want you to get in trouble.”  
  
“I will come anyway,” he says, stubborn.  
  
“Baekhyun-”  
  
“Sorry, gotta go.”  
  
Chanyeol’s eyes follow him until he leaves the cave. Baekhyun’s heart burns with unrequited feelings he can’t name yet.  
  


~

  
  
  
  


**36**

  
  
In hindsight, Baekhyun doesn’t really know Lee Donghae. In his mind, two different images have always floated indistinctly, meeting halfway sometimes to become one only to separate again. There’s the man Yoona spoke so fondly of – she’d never met him either, but Hyukjae must’ve told her about him so many times – foolishly in love, brave, the golden nephew of the Ruler of Pophos. And then there’s the man Baekhyun met the first time he set foot in Dakrya. Tall and broad, easy on the eyes, quick to laugh and nice to his subordinates, nice to the people on the streets, nice Harbingers. Nice to Baekhyun – the only one in Pophos who bothers. Donghae looks like he would be a great older brother, but other than that what does Baekhyun know?  
  
But Baekhyun doesn’t know who is the man standing in front of him, his shoulders tense, his mouth set in a straight line. Fire burns cold in his eyes, and he looks like the ancient prince of an old fairytale, torn between revenge and justice.  
  
“A Harbinger who died for a secret,” he muses, slowly, his eyes never leaving Donghae’s. “I thought Hyukjae died trying to save you.”  
  
Both Youngho and Ten gasp loudly. “You know that name?” asks the first, while the second covers his mouth with his hands and looks at Donghae, who seems quite taken aback. He clearly wasn’t expecting Baekhyun to ask _this_ question, among all the things he could’ve asked. He wasn’t expecting Baekhyun to know Hyukjae’s name, and for a split moment his armor cracks and Baekhyun can see just a sliver of the pain hidden inside this man.  
  
“Who told you about Hyukjae? I thought it was forbidden,” he asks, after recovering his composure. “Especially in Dakrya.”  
  
“My mentor did. She told me about all the Harbingers she knew, because she wanted me to remember. I do the same with my _pais_ now.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
Baekhyun kicks a pebble and watches it disappear outside the circle of light the magic fire has created around them. “At night, I wonder what will become of me after my death. Will someone ever remember my name? Or will the Weepers of the Klæin delete every trace of my existence? Lee Hyukjae was lucky. He has someone who remembers him, no matter how painful it is, but many other Harbingers have no one. No one but those who survived. If we don’t care about each other, if we don’t keep each other’s memories alive, who will?”  
  
The corners of Donghae’s lips turn upwards, in a tight, sour smile. “How nostalgic. That’s what he always used to tell me, when he was alive. He said he was bound to die young anyway, and that I was supposed to forget about him and find someone else to love quickly instead of being sad for his death. He said other Harbingers would remember about him, and that I didn’t need to.”  
  
“You didn’t listen to him,” comments Baekhyun, dryly.  
  
“I’ve always thought he was lying to look less pathetic, to convince me it was really fine to forget him. As if I could’ve ever let him go.”  
  
Baekhyun opens his mouth, but only an awkward silence comes out. Everything he could ever say or do is meaningless in front of this kind of sour, regretful loneliness.  
  
Yoona told Baekhyun Hyukjae’s story, how he died to save Donghae. They entered the maze together, but only one of them managed to go back. That’s all Baekhyun knows.  
  
“But there was more to it, right?”  
  
“Yes, there’s more. Hyukjae was the Harbinger appointed for the route that went from Dakrya to Apistein. One day, he came back bringing news of a civil war in Apistein. The queen had decided to declare war to the Temple. They told him to go back to Apistein and confirm the situation, but when he came back here, it was with a message of the queen of Apistein, saying that the Temple had fallen and the cult of the Klæin wouldn’t be permitted anymore in her city.”  
  
Baekhyun can only imagine how scared the Weepers had been. The supremacy of the cult of the Klæin owes everything to the belief that the cities would collapse without the favor of the Unseen. If people knew a city was able to survive without Weepers and temples, how long would it be until the Weepers of the Klæin were completely annihilated?  
  
“So they tried to bury everything. And Hyukjae was in the way,” he concludes. “They simply decided to get rid of him. We ran away together. I came back alone. You know the rest.”  
  
The maze has rules, and for every time a rule is broken, there’s a price to pay. Hyukjae was the Harbinger and Hyukjae paid the price, just like Yoona paid hers when it was her time to do it. Just like Baekhyun will have to do, one day.  
  
In the silence that follows Donghae’s words, Baekhyun shakes his head. “I thought you, of all people, wouldn’t want to talk about him to anyone else.”  
  
He doesn’t know where Donghae found the strength to tell this story to Ten, Youngho, who knows who else, and now Baekhyun too. Baekhyun has never told anyone about Yoona’s death, just like Yoona has never told him about Baekbeom, until the very last day. (As if she already knew it was her last day. Maybe she did. Maybe they all knew. Maybe they all had a choice. Maybe, one day, Baekhyun will have a choice too. Or maybe it already came and he didn’t recognize it.)  
  
“I thought that too. But I was too afraid to forget. And I felt like a coward. I don’t want the only person I’ve ever loved to disappear from this world. Hyukjae deserved better. Ten deserved better. You deserve better.”  
  
“So that’s why you’re doing this? For Hyukjae? For us? Or is it just for your own sake that you’re trying to start a revolution?” he asks.  
  
“I’m doing it for everyone. I’m tired to live my life in the shadow of the temples. I’m tired of rules written in books so old we can barely touch them before they turn into dust. I’m tired of seeing kids going to their death every year, never coming back. Aren’t you tired too, Baekhyun? We could have so much better than this.”  
  
“What makes you think we want it? You and I might want something better, but what about everyone else?” He gestures towards the barrier surrounding the city, where Pophos’ lights are playing a game of reflections and refractions. “People believe in the Unseen because it’s their only hope. They don’t want to save themselves, they want to be saved. They want the Temple of the Klæin, they want the lies, they want the easy way.”  
  
“Maybe you’re right,” says Youngho. Baekhyun had almost forgotten he and Ten were still there. “That’s why we need people like Ten, or his friends from Apistein, or you. You can make people understand, you can show them that life goes on outside these walls, that things change. Things _can_ change. There’s a revolution going on, Baekhyun. For me it started the day Ten was cursed by the moon, for the Captain it started the day a Harbinger Lee Hyukjae of Pophos died. For Apistein it started when the queen decided to take down the Temple, for Dakrya it started the day your Despotes found a demon, a real demon, down here in the Netherworld, the proof that what is written in the Klæin is a lie. For you, it starts now. You can join us, Baekhyun.”  
  
He’s so young, so hopeful. So full of passion. It will burn soon, thinks Baekhyun, until only the ashes will remain. His hope will wane too, slowly, turning into misery. Baekhyun used to have it too, hope, but now it’s gone. He only has Chanyeol, his only hope, and he needs to go back to him.  
  
“I can’t join you,” he says.  
  
“Do you really want to live your whole life like this?” yells Youngho. “Trapped and treated like cattle?”  
  
Baekhyun gets up too now, and he’s not as tall as Youngho is, but liquid silver explodes in his eyes, wild and violent, and Youngho takes an instinctive step back.  
  
“So what if your revolution goes well? You get rid of the Weepers and of the Temple… for what? Will it give you freedom? Will it give you happiness? Will it give you back your loved one when the maze will snatch him away?” He can hear Ten’s sharp intake of breath – is it fear? Is it rage? “Don’t look at me like that, Ten, you’re a Harbinger, and you know better than me that our days are numbered, down to the last one, and it’s not something that will go away if we get rid of the temples. This is our curse, our own. Not mine, not yours, everyone’s curse. You can chase your revolution, but at the end of the day, you’ll still be trapped here, in our tiny little cities, surrounded by a labyrinth of monsters. It’s useless, all your efforts are. Nothing will change. Nothing will _ever_ change.”  
  
Ten stares at him with big eyes, quietly. He stares and wait for Baekhyun to finish, waits for his harsh breaths to echo in the silent darkness.  
  
“Do you really think we live in a hopeless world?” The silver in his eyes quivers, the moon scythe gleaming softly against the deep black of his eyes. “I don’t think we’re hopeless, Baekhyun. Whatever god put us in this hell, whatever punishment he thought for us, he didn’t want us to be hopeless. He gave us a light that shines even in the deepest darkness. He gave us a compass to always find the way. We’re so far away we could as well be in different universes, but we aren’t, Baekhyun. We aren’t. We’re all part of the same world. And the proof, you know, is in us. Harbingers. We are the hope of humanity, aren’t we?”  
  
The hope of humanity. Baekhyun chuckles. Chanyeol used to say the same things. Almost ten years have passed and Baekhyun still doesn’t know whether he is right or wrong.  
  
“Maybe we could’ve been, but humanity doesn’t want us,” he says. “I don’t need you to tell me that the Klæin is lying, that we don’t need the temples, the Weepers or these stupid rules or whatever. I know. I learned that the hard way, on my own. But, you know what? It didn’t help me. Being right never saved my life.” Chanyeol saved Baekhyun’s life. Not a revolution. “I won’t risk my life for your dream. Nothing will start for me today.”  
  
“I think it might be too late for that,” whispers Ten.  
  
“Ten!” exclaims Donghae, a warning.  
  
“He deserves to know, more than you or I do. Dakrya is his home. And you told me we would tell him, so this is me telling him.” Baekhyun watches back and forth between Donghae and Ten, until Donghae looks away and raises his hands in defeat. Ten looks towards Baekhyun.  
  
“A civil war broke out in Dakrya six cycles ago, only a few cycles after you left. The Temple of the Klæin accused the Despotes of blasphemy and tried to turn the people of the city against him. When I left, they were still fighting.”  
  
Baekhyun gets up, immediately.  
  
“I need to leave, right now.”  
  


~

  
  
  
  


**10**

  
  
Maybe flowers blooming and blossoming and bursting on the fields are just like the bruises kissing Baekhyun’s skin, just black on white instead of red on green. If Baekhyun closes his eyes though, they become red, just like the pictures of the flowers he found in the Klæin. Flowers are red. Pain is also red. Cold and darkness are black. Fear is white, like bones.  
  
Baekhyun visits Chanyeol again, even if Chanyeol begged him not to. He does it because he’s sad, because he’s alone, because he’s hurting. Because Chanyeol might be the closest thing to a friend Baekhyun right now has. Because Chanyeol makes him feel better.  
  
“You shouldn’t have come,” says Chanyeol, as soon as he hears the clink of Baekhyun’s soft steps on the ladder. Baekhyun lands with a soft thump on the ground and cleans his hands from the rusty power of the iron ladder. His back hurts where his bones are outgrowing his body, stretching him wide until it’s bordering on painful.  
  
“I wanted to come,” he only replies, stepping into the light of the magic fires shining around Chanyeol. Only then the taller boy is able to take a good look at him, to see the red on his wrists and shins. Pain is red, remembers Baekhyun.  
  
Chanyeol’s chains rattle and clink and, for a moment, Baekhyun is glad he’s restrained. He looks scary and dangerous. He looks like he would gladly kill everyone in Dakrya to protect Baekhyun, but then what would it be of Chanyeol himself? If the Klæin knew about the demon chained under Dakrya, they’d immediately demand his death.  
  
When he tells his worries to Chanyeol, the boy chuckles angrily. “You worry over nothing. They cannot kill me, you know? They already tried, so many times. People of the Netherworld can’t take my life.”  
  
“But they could hurt you.”  
  
Chanyeol smiles, tired and brilliant like only someone who has seen the sun can be.  
  
“They tried that, too.”  
  
Baekhyun doesn’t want to think about Chanyeol’s pain, not when he has so much of his own. He walks close, closer than he should, lured into Chanyeol’s warmth like a foolish moth chasing the sun. Chanyeol grasps his hand, tracing all the lines on Baekhyun’s palm before stopping on his wrist. He circles it with two fingers. It looks so tiny in Chanyeol’s hands, so fragile. There’s dried blood on Chanyeol’s wrists, where the shackles have bitten at the skin, but there’s red on Baekhyun’s wrists too, where the iron rod of the Weepers has fallen.  
  
“What was this for?” he asks, eyes fixed on the wounds, as if trying to magically heal them.  
  
Baekhyun thinks about it. “I didn’t bow quick enough. No, wait. That was last week. Yesterday I was punished because I glared at the Hiereus. He especially doesn’t like when I do that.” Chanyeol’s silence is murderous, so Baekhyun is quick to explain. “It’s really disrespectful to do that. Because I’m cursed and the sight of the curse in my eyes is a great offence for…”  
  
“It’s not a curse,” says Chanyeol, almost a reflex reaction. If he keeps saying it, one day Baekhyun will start believing him. Maybe. “So basically they’re just looking for an excuse to hit you?”  
  
Baekhyun shrugs. That’s how the Weepers of the Klæin treat Harbingers. All Harbingers. Though, Baekhyun must admit, they are especially harsh on him, but only because he can’t seem to hide how much he hates them back.  
  
“It’s fine, I’m used to it.” He hopes he looks convincing, but Chanyeol looks even angrier. He tries to cup Baekhyun’s face, but stops when Baekhyun flinches violently, as if expecting to be hit. Chanyeol’s eyes harden, then soften. He sighs.  
  
“But I don’t understand. Why do you let them treat you like this?”  
  
“They’re… They’re the Weepers of the Klæin, the priests of the Unseen. The Klæinis... It’s been there since the beginning. The Klæin is the truth.”  
  
Chanyeol frowns. “If you’re right, the Klæin was written more hundreds of years ago. You weren’t there, no one still alive was there, so how can you be certain what is written there is the truth?”  
  
Baekhyun gets up, suddenly.  
  
“You can’t say that! It’s blasphemy! What if someone hears…” He stops, when he remembers that Chanyeol is a demon, his mere existence in the Netherworld is proof that the Klæin is wrong. A living blasphemy. “Don’t say that again, Chanyeol.”  
  
“Why are you defending that book? You hate the Weepers! You don’t even believe in the god of the Klæin!”  
  
But Chanyeol is right, he can’t understand. The Klæin has dictated everyone’s life in the Netherworld since the first cities were created. The proof is that, even if contacts between the cities are almost impossible, there’s a temple of the Klæin in every city of the Alliance Baekhyun knows of. Chanyeol can’t simply dismiss that. It’s stupid. It’s dangerous. It’s against the natural order of things.  
  
“The Klæin is what keeps us united. All of us. All of the Buried Cities.”  
  
“It’s just a book, Baekhyun. Books are written by men. And men lie.”  
  
“Demons can lie too.”  
  
Baekhyun might only be sixteen years old but he knows many things. He knows his life will be short. He knows the maze is dangerous. He knows Chanyeol saved his life. He doesn’t know much about Chanyeol other than he’s a demon who comes from the Overworld. (Chanyeol himself doesn’t know a lot about himself.) But, at the end of the day, there’s no way to tell if Chanyeol is lying, and this scares Baekhyun almost more than the Furies in the maze. He could live knowing everyone else is lying to him, but Chanyeol… He likes Chanyeol. He wants to trust Chanyeol, who’s older and powerful. Chanyeol, whose music paints colors Baekhyun has never seen, whose existence is dense and solid in ways Baekhyun’s existence will never be. He makes things louder, thicker, heavier. He makes things pretty.  
  
All his life, Baekhyun has done nothing but stare outside a window, seeing the world through the words of the Klæin, through the threats of the Weepers, through the darkness of the maze. But when he’s with Chanyeol, suddenly the window is gone, the room is gone, even the darkness he’s gone. Baekhyun looks up and he can see the stars. Sometimes the stars even seem to look back at him.  
  
“You’re wrong, anyway,” says Chanyeol, and when he’s with him Baekhyun wants nothing more than to be wrong, all his life. He wants Chanyeol to show him the truth. He wants wants _wants_ , like he’s never wanted in his life.  
  
“What do you mean?”  
  
“What you said about the Klæin. You’re wrong. The Klæin doesn’t unite the cities. There’s something else that keeps them together. Without it, Klæin or not, all the cities would drift apart.”  
  
“What is it?” he asks. Can he steal it? Can he learn it? Can he carry it across the maze, to make Dakrya and every other city a better place?  
  
Chanyeol smiles again. Dimples. Baekhyun is a little in love with his cryptic truths, with his angry eyes and with his dimpled smiles. He’s in love with the idea of Chanyeol, of an entire world he knows nothing about, somewhere out there, waiting for him to reach it.  
  
“What keeps the city united is you.”  
  
“Me?”  
  
“People like you. Harbingers.” He lets Baekhyun muse over the immensity of what he has just said. “You’re the proof other cities do exist. You’re the proof humankind is still alive, somewhere, out there. You’re the proof gods don’t really hate humanity. You’re the proof of something so big, so powerful, so brilliant, that without it humanity would be lost. You’re humanity’s last hope, Baekhyun. So, the next time a Weeper dares to raise their dirty hands at you, promise me you’ll fight back.”  
  


~

  
  
  
  


**37**

  
  
Pophos shines on the other side of the mountain. Baekhyun can see its pale glow reflected on the vault of the cave, miles and miles above his head. It clashes against the barrier and creates rainbows of blinking, lucid colors. Empty colors. Cold colors.  
  
It’s easy to think that’s all Pophos is. All façade, but now Baekhyun knows that there’s another side to all this splendor. Like a flipped coin, Pophos has a head and a tail. On the side of the mountain facing west – the dark side – ruins of the old city are falling apart, its walls draped in decay, turning into dust day after day. People are dying in the slums because they can’t afford to live on the eastern side of the city, with electricity and running water and everything else. Life is unfair. Life, as unfair as it is, goes on.  
  
“I’m sorry you were dragged into this,” says Donghae, as he leads Baekhyun towards the walls.  
  
Baekhyun can only nod. There’s really nothing to forgive. In the end, Donghae only wants to do the right thing. Baekhyun is not sure he’s succeeding, but he can praise his good intentions.  
  
“You never liked this city,” says Donghae, “and I never really understood why. Ten has told me how things are in Dakrya, and I honestly can’t believe you don’t like it here. The lights, the warmth.”  
  
Baekhyun scoffs. “You don’t know what warmth is. You don’t know what light is.”  
  
“You do?”  
  
“I might.”  
  
“You might?” repeats Donghae, eyes narrowing.  
  
Baekhyun hesitates. There are secrets sticking to the roof of his mouth, like soft petals, threatening to choke him. Things he can’t say to Chanyeol, things he doesn’t even dare to think for himself. But they’re always there, at the back of his mind, nagging at him.  
  
_Who are we? Where do we come from? Why are we here? Where are we going?_  
  
There was a time when Baekhyun might’ve believed the answer to these questions was to be found in the Klæin, but now he knows it’s not the answer that matters, but the question. Things like why he couldn’t feel the cold before meeting Chanyeol, where does the maze finish and where does it start, why sometimes, when he closes his eyes, he feels the ghost of warmth of his face, together with memories of a life he’s never lived. A life on the surface. In the Overworld.  
  
Endless questions haunt him. He feels so close to see the truth with his own cursed eyes, and yet so far away. What is the answer? What is the right question?  
  
Ten’s answer – Donghae’s answer, really – is revolution. Baekhyun’s question is the maze itself.  
  
“Come,” says Donghae, when he realizes Baekhyun’s reluctance to answer. He points at the stonewall in front of them. “See? These walls surround the whole island and the mountain. They protected us for centuries, since Pophos was built. According to the legends in the Klæin, the Unseen gave us these walls himself, so that they could last forever.”  
  
The stones look frail and old under Donghae’s hands. “Now we don’t need them anymore. We have the barrier and we have strong weapons. We’re safe, you know? The river surrounds us and the only bridge is the one in front of the Golden Doors. Even if these walls will fall down, we will survive. No matter what the Weepers of the Klæin say. If god will not protect us, we can protect ourselves.”  
  
“You don’t believe in the Klæin, then,” muses Baekhyun. Of course he doesn’t, but he’s also brave enough to say it out loud, when the punishment for abjuration is usually death.  
  
“Do you believe it?”  
  
Baekhyun chuckles. “I believe in what I can see with my own eyes. The Klæin says the border between the Netherworld and the Overworld can’t be crossed. But that demon did it.”  
  
“Is he really that amazing, this demon the Despotes captured in Dakrya?”  
  
Baekhyun closes his eyes, long lashes caressing his cheeks. “Yes, you might say that.”  
  
“I hope the Temple hasn’t found him then. I hope I can meet him, someday.”  
  
He stops in front of a simple crevice, identical to all the other crevices they’ve passed until now. He kneels on the cold ground and start pulling at a stone in the wall. “Help me out, would you?”  
  
With Baekhyun’s help, they slowly drag the stone away to reveal a narrow tunnel. A thin body could crawl through it and sneak on the other side.  
  
“The gallery inside is empty. If you go there, you will find yourself at the shores of the Cocytus.” He claps his hands to get rid of the dust and finally cleans them on his expensive trousers. “I used to play with Hyukjae here, when we were young, before he became a Harbinger and I became the heir of the Ruler. We dug that passage together, and one day we used it to escape. The Weepers looked for it for months and they weren’t able to find it. It’s also the passage Ten uses to leave the city and go to Dakrya. You can use it to leave and also to come back, if you want.”  
  
Baekhyun doubts they’ll be seeing him soon. He’s so lost in his thoughts, already calculating the best course in order to reach Chanyeol easily, he almost misses the moment Donghae extends one of his hands towards him, expecting Baekhyun to take it and shake it.  
  
He does it.  
  
“You know, I might have really misjudged you, Byun Baekhyun from Dakrya. I’ve known you for three years, and I’ve always thought you were a little better than others but still quite average compared to other Harbingers. Not particularly smart, not fast, not strong and not agile. Favorite of the phoi, they call you, but I couldn’t get why would the phoi chose someone like you.”  
  
“Well, did you find your answer?”  
  
“Today, I might feel like I know what the phoi can see is you. It’s brilliant. It reminds me of what I lost a long time ago. Please save your demon friend quickly and come back here. We need help to fight this war, all the help possible.”  
  
“Why are you so sure I’ll want to come back after I save Chanyeol?”  
  
“Because we need you.”  
  
“You don’t need me. You need someone who can believe in your cause and I’m not the right person. I’m not a hero.”  
  
“I don’t need a hero,” says Donghae, shaking his head. “You asked me how long will we resist and the answer is, until you come back. So come back, Baekhyun of Dakrya, and take your demon with you the next time.”  
  
Baekhyun bows to Donghae before he leaves.  
  
“I hope I’ll see you again.”  
  
He can feel the sizzle of the barrier against his skin, and finally he emerges on the other side, greeted by a lonely cluster of lazy phoi. They fly around him in a flurry, almost as if they’re saying, _welcome back_.  
  
“Come on,” says Baekhyun, “take me to Chanyeol.”  
  


~

  
  
  
  


**11**

  
  
At the end of the sixth month of Baekhyun’s third year as a Harbinger, the Despotes dies.  
  
Baekhyun is away when it happens, traveling to Aganaktein on behalf of the Temple of Dakrya. It’s not a long journey, four days to go, four days to come back, only a few hours of rest in the middle. Yoona could do the same journey in three days, when she wanted. Baekhyun could do it in two, if he wanted, but he doesn’t want to let the Weepers to know how fast he can really be, because they’d only demand even more from him. Besides, this way he can also visit Chanyeol on his way back without arousing the suspicions of the Hiereus  
  
This time, though, this time Baekhyun is late. A Fury tried to attack him only a few hours after he left Aganaktein. He managed to escape, thanks to the phoi, but he had to wait in a cramped little hole for hours, hiding while the monster looked for him. And after that, he had to limp his way through the maze, praying that the smell of his blood didn’t draw the attention of any other creatures who inhabit the darkness.  
  
He stops and looks down, at the long gash in his calf. It’s shallow and clean. Hopefully, it stopped bleeding a couple of hours ago. It will scar, eventually, though it will never become like the scar on Baekhyun’s back, shining silver, so so pretty and alien.  
  
While he’s lost in his thoughts, a little phos flies past him, nudging his hand, an impalpable, sheer caress. Baekhyun cradles it in his palm.  
  
“What is it, little one?” The light trembles quietly and disappears. “I have no time to play hide-and-seek with you, you know?”  
  
The phos reappears a little further, shaking up and down, encouraging Baekhyun to follow him. He disappears beyond the corner and down the natural stairs that lead to the Old Path. Baekhyun knows that gallery quite well, since it’s the way that leads to the cave where Chanyeol is imprisoned.  
  
“I can’t go there,” he says. “Not yet. I have to go back to Dakrya first.”  
  
So Baekhyun tries to bid goodbye to the little phos and go back to Dakrya, but the tiny light doesn’t give up. It flies around his head, oddly persistent and quite annoying, flashing in front of Baekhyun’s eyes until the boy finally stops again.  
  
“What is it that you want? I told you, I have to do this first. After that, we’ll go find Chanyeol, I promise.”  
  
At the mention of Chanyeol’s name, the phos literally explodes, and that’s when Baekhyun starts to worry.  
  
“What is it? Did something happen to Chanyeol?” he asks, confused. The phos shakes, up and down, as if to say yes. Baekhyun sighs.  
  
“I can’t really come with you, not this time.” The phos flies onto his nose, outraged, but there’s nothing Baekhyun can do. “The Weepers will whip me again if I’m late, and you know what will happen if they do? Chanyeol will get all worried and angry and he won’t tell me any stories.”  
  
The last time the Weepers whipped him, Baekhyun didn’t walk for three days. It took him more than one week to be able to travel again, and when Baekhyun finally visited him again, Chanyeol was out of himself with worry.  
  
And yet, the thought that Chanyeol was worried for him, that Chanyeol was thinking about him, that he was angry for him, fills Baekhyun’s chest with a viscous, guilty joy that clings to his lungs like honey and poison. _I’m a terrible person,_ he muses, in the silence of the maze, but at the same time he doesn’t care. He knows his feelings are hopeless. He’s aware, painfully aware, that Chanyeol didn’t come to the Netherworld to look for him. He can only hope in the scraps of Chanyeol’s attention, like a beggar, secretly enjoying the way their hands touch every time they sit together, cherishing Chanyeol’s smiles, his laughter, the stories he tells Baekhyun - and only Baekhyun.  
  
The phos still waves in front of him, blinking fast, urgently, in front of Baekhyun’s face. The boy looks at the tunnel in front of him, split in two in the middle. Right is to go back to Dakrya, left if to visit Chanyeol. The phos flies around his head, an annoying little star.  
“Ok, ok. We’re going to visit Chanyeol, just like you asked. But remember, if he’s fine and you’re just making me lose time, I’ll have my revenge.”  
  
The tiny light freezes, only one moment, and then scampers away. Baekhyun has no other choice than to follow its glow. It flies fast, jumping over obstacles with grace, skipping steps in the natural stones of the canyon and stopping sometimes, only to let Baekhyun catch his breath.  
  
“Go on,” says the boy, “I’m fine, I’m behind you.” The phos doesn’t turn back to see if Baekhyun is still following it, but he doesn’t need to do. the only other choice Baekhyun has would be to just give up and not know what happened to Chanyeol.  
  
He runs behind the phos, barely noticing that other phoi are joining them, a little galaxy of silver, lilac and pale blue, just like the crystals decorating the caves.  
  
“I hope it was really something serious,” he says, as he climbs down the ladder and inside the well where Chanyeol is chained, “because the phoi made me rush here faster than I’ve ever done somewhere in the maze and I have here this boring book to deliver to Dakrya, so if it’s only one of yours...”  
  
The words die in his mouth, breaking against his slightly parted lips.  
  
“Chanyeol?” he asks. The phoi float lazily around him, but they’re the only one. There’s no trace of the demon who has been Baekhyun’s only friend for the last months. Only the chains remain, all balled up and abandoned on the ground. And the lyre, Chanyeol’s precious lyre, his only memory from the Overworld. Chanyeol would’ve never left it behind…  
  
But the well is empty.  
  
Baekhyun doesn’t know what to do. He waits, a few hours, in the darkness, as the phoi around him fade away like stars at sunrise. Except there’s no sunrise here, only darkness. Eternal darkness.  
  
When Baekhyun finally comes back to Dakrya, more than ten days have passed since he’s left. He expects to be punished harshly, but no one notices him. Instead, a sight that Baekhyun has never seen greets him.  
  
The Beacon, the palace of the Despotes of Dakrya, is lit. On top of the black tower, the tallest building in Dakrya, even taller than the temple, a magic fire, big enough to be visible from the entire city, spreads a red, sanguine hue.  
  
“What happened?” he asks, breathless, to the guard that opens the doors of Dakrya for him.  
  
For once, excitement wins over the disgust and fear that everyone in Dakrya feels whenever they look at Harbingers, and the guard points to the Beacon, standing tall in the middle of the city, proud and powerful.  
  
“How long were you away? Six days ago, the Despotes died.” The news surprises Baekhyun. He didn’t know the Despotes was sick, and he wasn’t even that old. “But it’s not over. At the elections, his younger son won against all his older brothers. The new Despotes is barely seventeen years old.”  
  
“We have a new Despotes?”  
  
“Yes. His name is Kyungsoo. Do Kyungsoo.”  
  
Do Kyungsoo, thinks Baekhyun, must be the only person in Dakrya who knows where Chanyeol is.  
  


~

  
  
  
  


**38**

  
  
Baekhyun runs and runs, as fast as he can, to go back to Chanyeol before it’s too late – even though, in his heart, he already knows it’s too late.  
  
The phoi lead him, and he flies, like a nightingale, like a silverbird, trapped underground, his feet light on the black stone, the phoi blinking around him like lonely stars.  
  
_Hurry,_ they seem to say, _before it’s too late._  
  
_I know,_ he wants to answer. Faster, he needs to run faster. The cold air whips his face and poison his lungs as pain grows in his chest. The world is so cold.  
  
He sees it from so far away, even before he reaches Dakrya, when he’s still climbing down the harsh peaks that surround the city. A red light, shining from the center of Dakrya. The Beacon is lit. Ten didn’t lie, something is really happening in Dakrya.  
  
_Kyungsoo, what did you do? I told you to leave the Temple alone…_  
  
Baekhyun climbs down until he reaches the bottom of the cave, but he doesn’t take the main path that leads back to his hometown. He finds a hole, in the ground, the mouth of another gallery that digs deep in the belly of the mountain, in the mines of Dakrya. To where Chanyeol is always chained.  
  
The need to see Chanyeol, to hear his laughter, the need to touch Chanyeol, to kiss the worry out of his face, to let Chanyeol kiss the worry out of his own face, is overwhelming, so big Baekhyun can almost see it, shining like an aura of despair around him.  
  
He runs, until he can’t breathe anymore, only to stop at the door of the cell. He doesn’t need to walk inside to know – he’s always known – that it’s empty. He can feel Chanyeol’s absence like a still bleeding wound. He slowly pushes the door open and walks inside.  
  
The room is really empty, like a nightmare, like a déjà vu. Chanyeol’s lyre lies on the floor, abandoned, two of the chords broken. Baekhyun’s breath catches in his throat. He’s alone, again. Alone in the maze.  
  
But what is a maze? In the end, isn’t it just a map you can walk on? Oh, Baekhyun wishes it was that easy. If the maze is a map, he wants to hold it all in his hands. He wants to read it with silver eyes, to find the place where Chanyeol is hiding. But Baekhyun’s map is blank and empty, waiting for him to fill it. He doesn’t know how.  
  
  
  
  
  
_— And without drums or music, long hearses  
Pass by slowly in my soul; Hope, vanquished,  
Weeps, and atrocious, despotic Anguish  
On my bowed skull plants her black flag._  
  
Spleen (Fleurs du Mal)  
— Charles Baudelaire  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	4. iii. tears / δάκρυα

  
_Before your light quite fail,  
Already paling star,  
(The quail  
Sings in the thyme afar!)  
  
Turn on the poet's eyes  
That love makes overrun—  
(See rise  
The lark to meet the sun!)  
  
Your glance, that presently  
Must drown in the blue morn;  
(What glee  
Amid the rustling corn!)_  
  
  
  
Dakrya is a city of miners, a city of mines, made of galleries that coil under the Earth’s crust like empty snakes, laid out among layers and layers of _koal_ , veins of gold and silver, streams of iron and copper and lead and soft clay, white and brown, and primordial blocks of ancient stone. It’s a city of tunnels wrapped around a bundle of rubbish and noble metals, its houses drilled into raw rock, its squares no more than repurposed caves. Dakrya’s walls are night skies, pitch black and dotted by clusters of precious stones, raw and dirty, like dead stars, waiting only to be cut into flowers of light by the steady hands of the artisans of the Inner Circle.  
  
Unlike most Buried Cities, Dakrya doesn’t have a precise shape. It doesn’t expand horizontally, like Aganaktein, or vertically, like Pophos. Dakrya expands in every direction, whenever it feels like it. Its limits are not defined by physical barriers like underground rivers, ditches or walls, and that’s because Dakrya’s own nature defies limits. Dakrya doesn’t have a beginning or an end. There’s only the maze and how much Dakrya can steal from it before one of them swallows the other. Dakrya grows with its mines and shrinks when they die. It moves, crawling deep down like a hungry fiend, chasing the precious metals alchemist need to make magic fires deeper and deeper into the belly of the earth. Like a snake, it changes its skin, leaving behind skeletons of abandoned houses, ghosts of marketplaces, spoils and remains, cemeteries of memories and, of course, old, abandoned tunnels.  
  
Baekhyun has found them all and he has retraced every inch of them back to the ruins Dakrya left behind when the city was moved, many times in its long history. One city of Dakrya exploded during an incident with magic fires three hundred years ago, according to the burnt remains Baekhyun found in a ditch near a large, already exhausted vein of _koal_. One was abandoned after a plague and Baekhyun had to tie a cloth around his face and be careful not to touch anything when he visited it, hence he caught the last shreds of a hundred years old illness. One was simply left behind to look for more profitable mines.  
  
The last, the farthest, the oldest city of Dakrya Baekhyun has ever found, was built on the foundations of a demon city. It’s the only possible explanation, because Baekhyun has never seen that kind of architecture everywhere but there, all tall and sleek columns, elegant capitols, though cracked and dirty, and majolica on the streets, not dark stone but white marble, the things the books of the Klæin tell about in their tales of the gods of the Overworld. The cave containing the city is at least ten times bigger than the one where Aganaktein is built. It’s so huge, it could probably contain more than half of the cities of the Alliance.  
  
Baekhyun explored that titanic city for hours, finding skeletons of houses he only ever saw in the oldest books of the Klæin, and yet the city was so big he had barely breached through it when it was already time to go back to his own Dakrya. He told Chanyeol all about it and the boy frowned for a long time and asked Baekhyun not to visit the Oldest-Dakrya ever again.  
  
“It’s dangerous. Trust me, stay away from that place, Baekhyun.”  
  
And Baekhyun did. He stayed away, for a long time. Until, one day, he met the Despotes of Dakrya.  
  
“Tell me again about these old ruins you found.”  
  
“What use would they have for you? You will not be able to go there anyway. The road that leads to that place is cursed, swarming with Furies. No one can go there and survive.”  
  
“You did.”  
  
Baekhyun did, once, because he was stupid and foolishly brave, and because he was lucky, the favorite of the phoi. Chanyeol told him to never do it again.  
  
The Despotes looks at him, as if gauging how much can Baekhyun really do, how much can Baekhyun really know. He doesn’t trust him, Baekhyun knows it. In this game of power, this push-and-pull challenge between the Despotes and the Hiereus, Baekhyun is the odd pawn on the chessboard, the one that could tip the balance towards one or the other side. The Despotes is the knight, the Temple is the queen, the army of Dakrya is the horse and the people of the city are the tower. They’re all playing a game, but there’s only one set of players, only one side of this chessboard, because they’re playing a game against themselves, within themselves.  
  
The Despotes looks down, at his own personal board. A model of the city, of its galleries, of its dying mines. A long time ago, Dakrya was the first, the greatest Buried City of the Alliance. Now it’s just an old, dusty place, overcrowded and dirty, a messy kaleidoscope of magic fires, hunger, fine dust and the vestiges of a long gone past.  
  
“I want to move the city again.”  
  
How, Baekhyun wants to ask. _How in the world can you think these people, our people, would willingly walk into the maze, even to save their own lives? How would you keep them safe? How crazy are you, Do Kyungsoo?_  
  
“The Temple will stop you,” he says only, eyes casted low, staring at the miniature replica of streets he knows well enough he can even spot the slightest inaccuracies in the model. Infinitesimal differences – one tunnel is longer, another shorter, a third one isn’t in the model at all – but they’re enough to draw a line between life and death in Baekhyun’s job.  
  
“You said it yourself, it has already been done in the past. Our people are dying, Baekhyun. Dakrya is dying. We dug all the mines too deep and we’re scratching at our own leftovers. Give it a few years. We’re already digging too deep into our supply of _koal_ to keep our greenhouses running. You know that, without magic fires, we can’t grow food. _We_ are dying, Baekhyun. We must move.”  
  
It’s the dream of a madman, and yet Baekhyun can’t help but to be lured to it, like a foolish moth. The Despotes of Dakrya has this kind of effect on people. They love him and they would follow him whatever he decides, Baekhyun is well aware of it. But the Temple will never ever allow it. Even if it was the only way to save the whole city, the Hiereus would oppose the Despotes out of sheer pettiness.  
  
“It has been done in the past, yes, but how will you convince the Council? There are records in the Temple, but they’ll never let you have them, so what proof do you have? Other than my word, and we both know my word is not worth anything for the people of Dakrya, nor for the Temple. You’ll get me killed for nothing.”  
  
“I won’t get you killed, Baekhyun. I need you alive, or Chanyeol will never lead my people there, don’t you think?” His eyes meet Baekhyun’s, as if to calculate his worth again. There’s nothing to calculate. Baekhyun is worthless.  
  
“He won’t do it, you know him. He wouldn’t help you, not even for me.”  
  
“I don’t know, Baekhyun. He really seems to care about you. And you seem to care about him.”  
  
And there it is, the attack Baekhyun was waiting for. If this is a game of chess, if Baekhyun is the pawn that alone can decide the game, Chanyeol can only be the king.  
  
“So tell me, Baekhyun, how much do you want to see Chanyeol?”  
  
Checkmate.  
  
  
  
  


iii. tears / δάκρυα

  
  


**39**

  
  
While finding the way back to Dakrya is terribly complicated even for experienced Harbingers, leaving is astoundingly easy. Protecting a fortified city is, in fact, quite simple. But an agglomeration of mining and inhabited tunnels this big, this messy and complicated and unable to abide by the rules, is bound to have a weakness. Even Pophos, with its thick, strong fortifications, with the angry river surrounding it, and with its barrier of electricity and magic, wasn’t able to keep its Harbingers inside, Hyukjae first, Ten and now even Baekhyun, sneaking out like rats through a hole in the walls.  
  
But Dakrya doesn’t have a weak point in its walls, because Dakrya doesn’t have walls. What use would they have in a city that travels through history, moving slowly year after year? Dakrya’s foundation lays on top of a knot of intertwined galleries, a skein of exhausted _koal_ tunnels. Some of them are dead ends, but some of them lead outside, to the maze, and there is nothing potentially stopping someone who’s trying to leave. But, really, who would ever want to leave, when outside there’s only the maze, with its Stranger-Places, its Darkest-Hours and its herds of horrible monsters? And who would ever know how to find the right way among the many thousands that coil under the city, without magic fires, without electricity, without light? Only a Harbinger, and a desperate one too.  
  
Luckily, Baekhyun is not only a desperate Harbinger, but he also had ten years to explore the desolated, empty shells Dakrya left behind. He wandered through exhausted mines and decrepit homes turned into nests of Furies, deadly traps of poisonous gas and derelict, rickety bridges, until he knew the tunnels under the city like the back of his own hand.  
  
He chooses a gallery, an almost depleted copper vein that miners still follow nowadays, in the foolish hope of finding a connection to a bigger, more precious deposit, gold maybe, or silver, but even copper would be fine. _Koal_ , well, _koal_ would be a blessing, but lately, there’s been a scarcity of almost everything.  
  
Dakrya’s law states that a mine can’t be abandoned until it’s been completely plundered and drained, so people still dig these galleries, acutely aware that some of them are so old and long they might even lead them outside the barrier that surrounds the city.  
  
It’s easy to know when you’re stepping outside the barrier. It’s like an itch, a tingling on the skin, pins and needles. Then, suddenly, the magic fires stop working and everything turns back to black. Most miners lose themselves in such a thick darkness. Sometimes, they’re standing only a few steps away from the barrier, unable to see it, and the fear clouds their mind and leads them in the claws of the Furies.  
  
But Baekhyun is a Harbinger, so he bows down and summons the phoi, eyes glowing when they start to appear and color the walls of the cave silver, pink and pale blue. He follows the gallery for a few hours at their dim light, counting the steps and paying attention to the signs scribbled in white paint at every turn, trying to understand under what part of the city he’s walking, which Circle, which level, how long until he can climb outside.  
  
At the intersection between the copper mine and another tunnel that follows a smaller, older vein – silver maybe? – he stops, confused. He scratches his head and takes out the map.  
  
“Can I have a little more light, please?” he asks, always polite, and a big phos lazily comes down from the ceiling. It bounces from the tip of Baekhyun’s nose to the surface of the map, leaving a silver smudge that fades away when Baekhyun blows over it.  
  
“There should be another tunnel here, somewhere- oh, there it is!” he exclaims, when the phos points it out for him. The speck of light dances happily on his palm, and Baekhyun shakes his hand a little to make it bounce. He smiles. No matter how dire and dark the situation is, phoi always manage to calm him down. Not for long, though. Soon enough, he’ll reach the barrier and phoi won’t be able to follow him anymore. “Thank you again for leading me here alive,” he whispers. “I’ll do my best to save Chanyeol, I promise.”  
  
The phoi seem to shrug collectively and for a moment their light burns more intense than before. Then, one after another, they disappear slowly. Only one or two stay, to take Baekhyun home.  
  
While the barrier in Pophos is translucent and pretty, casting its pink hue all around the city and the mountain like a giant globe, the barrier around Dakrya is invisible. Baekhyun can still feel its energy though, so strong the air almost glitters with it when he finally reaches the border.  
  
“Thank you again,” he says, to the couple of phoi still following him around. “You can go now.”  
  
He blinks and they’re gone.  
  
The barrier reacts when he takes a step inside, magic crawling on his skin as if it recognizes the curse of the moon glistening inside him. He pushes through until he finds himself on the other side. In Dakrya. Home, finally.  
  
Leaving Dakrya is easy, the difficult part is usually coming back. Not this time though. This time, Baekhyun came back safely, but leaving – and leaving with Chanyeol – will be difficult. And where will they go, wonders Baekhyun, as he walks into the darkness. To Pophos? Where Donghae would use Chanyeol to gain power and start another war? To Apistein? Would Baekhyun really trust this queen who burned the temple of her city to the ground? Would he trust her with Chanyeol’s life? He trusted Kyungsoo and look what happened. So, where to go?  
  
_Let’s run away, I’ll take you to the Overworld,_ says Chanyeol’s voice in his memories. Baekhyun wants nothing more than to say yes, but Chanyeol is not here to hear it.  
  
After a couple of hours spent crawling in claustrophobic, narrow galleries, Baekhyun emerges from the darkness of the mines through the well of the Little Princess, one of the youngest, smallest mines in Dakrya. Princesses are silver, queens are gold, kings are iron, like the blade of their swords in legends. And then there’s the Black, Dakrya’s _koal_ mine, where the raw material for magic fires is extracted. A huge, messy knot of tunnels ready to collapse on each other at every whistle, like a maze in a maze. The Black is Baekhyun’s favorite, the mine where his father worked and where Baekhyun and Baekbom would’ve worked once they grew up. It’s also the mine where their father died.  
  
Baekhyun knows every inch of land, every gallery, every tunnel, every hole and every monster hidden within the Black. But all the entrances of the Black are in the outskirts of the city, in the outer Circles of Dakrya, too far away from the Agorà, where the Temple of the Klæin and the Beacon are built. That’s why he chose the Little Princess, one of the most central and busiest mines of Dakrya, whose entrance opens right in the middle of the city, near the Circle of the Artisans.  
  
Today though, strangely enough, the Little Princess is empty. The streets are eerily quiet as well. Baekhyun sneaks between closed shops and locked houses, sparing only a look to the desolated crossroad between the Circle of the Artisans and the Circle of the Forgers. When he reaches the gates of the Circle of the Forgers, he stops. All around him, the signs of a violent fight are scattered on the ground or smeared on the walls. There’s blood on the streets, staining the stone paths. A shoe, an abandoned doll lying in the dirt, sticks and swords scattered by the roadside. Red marks on the streets, like fireworks of ashes, where magic fires have exploded.  
  
Ten was right, there was a civil war in Dakrya. Baekhyun doesn’t know if it’s over, nor he dares ask himself who won. He doesn’t even know what to do. If the Temple ordered his death, they’ll kill him on sight. If a soldier of the Despotes finds him, he’ll be killed anyway because Harbingers belong to the temple, and that makes them enemies. So what can he do? Where can he go? He’s a foreigner in his own home and he cannot even hide his identity, not with his eyes.  
  
While he’s trying to figure out what to do, a horn blows somewhere in the level above his own. The sound ebbs through the stone, making the ground shake in its wake. When the horn fades, the vibration stays, a quiver of the earth, a trembling in Baekhyun’s bottom lip as he waits, for a long moment. Then, the explosions start. Magic fires. It takes a moment for Baekhyun to put two and two together and realize where they come from.  
  
_The Temple,_ he thinks, as he starts running. _Someone is fighting at the Temple._  
  
Dust falls on his face and shoulders with every new explosion, coloring his neck and eyelashes a sandy brown. He wipes his face with clammy hands as he darts through the gallery, only slowing down when he sees the Western Doors of the Agorà.  
  
The guard post is jarringly empty and the heavy, thick doors are parted, barely enough to give him a glimpse of light exploding against the ceiling of the wide cave that contains the heart of Dakrya, the Agorà. Dry blood stains the bronze carvings a brown black.  
  
Another explosion, and this time, together with the rumbling of the ground traveling through the stone, Baekhyun can also hear the faint clash of metal against metal, barely filtering through the heavy bronze gates. It calls him. He slides between the thick doors, and as soon as he steps on the other side he’s assaulted by the clangor of the battlecry.  
  
The Agorà opens in front of him like a hole gaping darkness and hot white fire, like a storm. The giant cave, with its tall ceilings, thousand years old stalactites and stalagmites carved by water and patience, with its niches and alcoves big enough to contain an entire house, has sunken into a sea of black, The titanic globes of magic fire, more than two hundred years old, orbiting on the ceiling like planets in a perpetual motions, are gone. Only frantic, abrupt explosions, caused by the magic fires used on both sides of the battlefield, unveils the slaughter that is taking place in the darkness. A moment and it’s gone, like the flash of lightning. Baekhyun has never seen a storm, but he knows this must be one.  
  
In the middle of the square, right where the Council deliberates over the destiny of the city, a barricade has been erected using waste materials and sacks of stones taken from the mines. It slashes the Agorà, the cave – maybe the entire city – in two. On this side of the barricade, the Temple looms over Baekhyun. On the other side of the barricade, the Beacon spreads its red light over the Agorà. Baekhyun swallow a curse when he realizes he’s on the wrong side of the city. If he wants to know where Chanyeol is, he needs to reach the Despotes, on the other side of that barricade. And that means he needs to run right into the fight.  
  
A hiss pierces the air and Baekhyun flattens his body against the wall and closes his eyes, waiting for the entire cave to shake with the umpteenth explosion. Nothing happens. When he opens them again, he sees a magic fire glowing mid-air, shedding its light on a confused impression of violence, the blue of the army of Dakrya and the black and gold of the temple clashing with a metallic, wet clang, sparkles flying everywhere, arrows whistling in the air, people dying and screaming and crying, and the whole city shaking under their pain.  
  
There’s no way he’s going to walk into that mess. Even a nest of Furies would be a safer bet. He turns around to go back to the Little Princess, where he’ll be able to find another way to the Beacon, but a harsh, surprised voice halts him.  
  
“You! Stop right there! Raise your hands, slowly. Look, he’s a Harbinger.”  
  
He stops, as requested, and all the blood in his veins clots when he realizes the person pointing a sword at him, and leading a small troop of ten or more armed soldiers, is a Weeper of the Klæin. He can’t recognize the face behind the mask, but the Weeper recognizes Baekhyun. (And how could he not? Baekhyun has been around for the last ten years, the oldest Harbinger the city ever had. Everyone knows him.)  
  
“You... you should’ve been dead.” He stares at Baekhyun, unable to believe his eyes. “What are you waiting for? Take him!”  
  
Baekhyun steps back, eyes already scanning the alley for an escape route. He won’t let them take him. If they take him, it’s over. The Hiereus will kill him with his own hands this time.  
  
One of the soldiers take a first, reluctant step towards Baekhyun, keeping his guard high and his short sword pointed towards the boy’s sternum. He’s soon followed by three other men, all warily making their way towards the Harbinger.  
  
They’re not Weepers. Volunteers, probably. From the way they look at him, like they’re looking at a wild beast and all more scared of Baekhyun than Baekhyun will ever be of them, it’s the first time they see a Harbinger up close.  
  
_Well, time to live up to the legends,_ thinks Baekhyun, summoning his power until his eyes flash silver. It’s not much, but it’s enough for the man on the front to trip on his own feet in fear and for the rest of the troop to jump back, crossing their fingers to ward off the evil. It’s the moment Baekhyun was waiting for. He turns on his heels and flees.  
  
The Weeper barks a quick order and he hears the click of the crossbows being unleashed and the hiss of arrows coming his way, but it’s too late. He squeezes into a narrow side road before they can aim at his back and disappears in the darkness, chased by their screams. He runs blindly, more focused on outrunning the soldiers than checking where he’s going, and that’s when things go from bad to worse. He leaves the daedalus of little alleys to avoid ending up in a dead-end and, before he can realize it, he’s jumping right in the middle of the fight, at the barricade. From the frying pan, right into the fire. _Good job, Byun Baekhyun._  
  
The impact with war is violent, traumatic. Someone – Baekhyun will never know who it was, whether they belonged to the Temple or to the Despotes – swings a sword at him. It gets caught on the hem of his sleeve – one of those large sleeves with silver embroideries that Chanyeol found so tacky, and now it just saved Baekhyun’s life, who wins? He pulls away with a sound of torn fabric, feeling the blade scratch his wrist. Someone else hits him from behind and he trips and falls, avoiding an arrow that kills his assailant. The man collapses at Baekhyun’s feet, dead eyes staring at the ceiling, red drenching his blue uniform. Baekhyun closes his eyes and scrambles to stand up. He runs, again, trying to leave behind the smell of dust and blood, the explosions – a magic fire burns bright on his left, turning blue and then white for a moment before it blasts like a small star – and the cries of dying men. He runs, he runs, he runs into a blue uniform filled by a tall, young man wearing a silver helmet and a frown.  
  
The man looks at Baekhyun’s eyes, surprised, then at the Weepers still chasing him, trying to make their way through the clash, then at Baekhyun again. His eyes widen in recognition.  
  
One of his hands clamps around Baekhyun’s left wrist and he drags the boy through the fight, away from the fight, only turning back to shout something at his soldiers. “Keep the Harbinger safe! Hold the line! Hold the line!”  
  
Baekhyun can’t do anything. The man holds onto his wrists and the other soldiers of the Despotes close around them like a protective wall, a physical barrier between him and the enemy. He’s dragged far away from the melee, on the other side of the barricade, and dumped on the cold ground. The young, tall man comes back a few minutes later, his sword covered in viscous blood. He lets it fall on the dirt in front of Baekhyun and the blade hits the ground with a dull sound.  
  
“I can’t believe it’s really you,” the man, _the boy_ , for his voice sounds really young now, young and familiar, says. He takes out his helmet, and from the first time since he came back to Dakrya Baekhyun can heave a sigh of relief. Finally, a familiar face.  
  
“Sehun,” he murmurs, greeting the Captain of the Metropolitan Army of Dakrya. “Sehunnie.”  
  
Sehun’s face is tired, but it opens into a relieved, shaky smile. “We thought you were dead.”  
  
“Oh, well, I’ve survived in the maze for ten years. It would’ve been a shame to die at the hands of the Weepers of Pophos, don’t you think so? Give me a hand, will you?”  
  
Sehun pulls him up to his feet, hands lingering on Baekhyun’s own. “I’m so happy to see you. But, wait. We don’t have time! I must take you to the Despotes immediately. You are not allowed to refuse.”  
  
Baekhyun claps his hands on his thighs to get ready of the dust. He sighs. “As if I would. Take me to your Despotes, then, I believe we have many things to talk about.”  
  


~

  
  
  
  


**12**

When he has time, Baekhyun walks imaginary labyrinths in his head. He chooses a starting point, an ending point, and then carefully, patiently builds the road in his head. How many turns? How many steps? How many traps? The only way to survive in the maze is to own the maze. So Baekhyun sits down, closes his eyes, a boy who doesn’t have anything – not even his name, not even a secret anymore – and tries to conquer the maze.

That’s what he’s doing, sitting cross-legged on his bed, palms carefully spread over his knees, when the Deacon, the Weeper in charge of coordinating the Harbingers, barges into his room, fury burning palpably around him.

“What did you do?” he asks, eyes narrowing.

Baekhyun blinks. Two times, for good measure. “Nothing. I didn’t do anything, I swear.”

“Then try to explain why the Despotes sent his troops here, claiming one of the messages you last brought from Aganaktein was compromised.”

“I don’t know anything, I swear” he cries. He doesn’t go for the demure behavior very often, but he’s aware the Weepers like him better when he’s acting pathetic instead of defiant.  
His lie doesn’t seem to convince the Deacon though, so he insists. “You checked the seals yourself when I came back, didn’t you? It was still intact! How could I have opened the letter without breaking the seal?”

The mask covers whatever disbelief the Deacon is harboring. “The Despotes still insists on seeing you and the Hiereus is resting after last week’s ceremony.” The last sentence grabs Baekhyun’s attention. So the old man is still sleeping. It figures, considering the kind of energy it takes to renew the barrier every year. But if he’s sleeping he can’t demand to question Baekhyun personally instead of handing him to the Despotes, which is exactly what Baekhyun wants. The Unseen must be smiling on him today.

“What should I do?” he asks, again.

The Deacon thinks about it, clearly unhappy at having to take this decision by himself, but the presence of the soldiers of the Despotes in the temple convinces him to let Baekhyun go, in the end.

“They asked for you, so you will go. But I will come with you, boy, so keep your mouth shut and let me do the talking. And remember, if I find out you have, in any way, opened that letter or read the content and put us in this situation, I will have you flogged so hard you will pray to come back in the maze just to get away from me.”

Baekhyun doesn’t doubt his words, but he doesn’t care about them either. A plan has formed in his mind, a terrible and scary plan, the day Chanyeol disappeared. (Maybe even the day Chanyeol appeared, for Baekhyun would’ve never been able to go against the Temple of the Klæin if it hadn’t been for Chanyeol and his dimpled smile.)

The guards of the Despotes all look young, too young to hold a weapon. One of them takes hold of Baekhyun’s wrists as another puts him in shackles, hands and feet. The silver tinkle of the chain at his feet reminds him of when he had just entered the temple as a _pais_ , and they had chained his left ankle to keep him from running away. Running, sure, and where? There’s nowhere to run, not then, not now, almost six years later, so Baekhyun simply follows the column of soldiers, with the Deacon walking proudly next to him. People whispers at the soldiers’ passage, they bow in front of the Deacon, and they spit at Baekhyun’s feet, crossing their arms to ward him away, but he doesn’t care. He’s way past caring about what people think at this point.  
  
They walk slowly until they arrive at the Beacon. A young page wrapped in blue and gold announces their arrival. The Deacon turns towards Baekhyun, sending him a last warning glare, and tries to step into the throne room, only to be stopped by the guards at the entrance.  
  
“What are you doing? Let me in.”  
  
“Only the boy has been summoned.”  
  
“I am this boy’s caretaker and I am responsible for the actions of all Harbingers. I command you to let me in.”  
  
Oh, this is even better than what Baekhyun would’ve hoped for. He wonders if they’ll really leave the Deacon waiting outside. That would be awesome. Apparently, they do, because after a few minutes of heated argument, the page comes back with an order of the Despotes.  
  
“The Despotes summons the Harbinger in the throne room. He also declares that, according to the law of Dakrya, the only one who can undermine his authority and invalidate one of his orders is the Hiereus of the Temple. So I beg you to wait here.”  
  
The Deacon splutters, “How dare that little, arrogant-”  
  
Before he can finish the sentence, all the twelve swords in the rooms are unsheathed and pointed towards his chest.  
  
“You are kindly expected to keep your opinion to yourself, we will not stand by idly while you insult our ruler,” says the captain of the group of guards who came to take Baekhyun. Then, he turns towards Baekhyun and gives a sharp tug at the chains. “Enter, and be respectful. You’re in front of the Despotes of Dakrya.”  
  
Kyungsoo, thinks Baekhyun, dragging his feet and all the shackles tied to his ankles as he comes forward, the last murderous glare of the Deacon disappearing behind closed doors. Do Kyungsoo. He’s barely seventeen years old, a little less than one year younger than Baekhyun, and he’s already the ruler of Dakrya, a king among mortals. (But not a god, for the only god of the Netherworld is the Unseen.)  
  
“Come either, Harbinger,” says a low voice, and Baekhyun comes, stepping in the light casted by immensely huge magic fires, bigger than his room, bigger than his old home in the Circle of the Guards. He looks up at the stony face of the Despotes of Dakrya.  
  
The Despotes is short, with delicate full lips and serious, oddly focused eyes that look like they can pierce through Baekhyun’s soul, peeking at his deepest secrets.  
  
“There’s two things I want to know from you. The first is how you managed to open this letter, read it and even scribble your little challenge inside, without damaging the seal on the envelope,” he says, holding a pale, yellow roll of paper, the green seal of Aganaktein still impressed at the bottom of the sheet, right next to a bold, fat string of capital letters.  
  
THE DESPOTES OF DAKRYA IS HIDING A DEMON, it says, in Baekhyun’s hasty, messy handwriting. It’s an empty threat – Baekhyun would never tell anyone about Chanyeol – but the fact that he knows is still a threat, and it was enough to pique the Despotes’ attention and have him summoned to the Beacon to be questioned, which is exactly what Baekhyun wanted. At least his plan worked, up until now.  
  
Baekhyun is not expecting the Despotes to drop the paper, looking at him with angry, unimpressed eyes, before he says, “The second thing I want to know is what makes you so special and important that Chanyeol has been willing to exchange his freedom with your life not once, but two times already. Who are you for him, Byun Baekhyun, Harbinger of Dakrya?”  
  


~

  
  
  
  


**40**

  
  
The light spreading from the giant magic fire on top of the Beacon baths the entire city in a sanguine, eerie red light.  
  
Baekhyun turns towards Sehun, who’s bleeding profusely from a cut over his eyebrow. “Nothing serious,” he said only a few minutes ago, sensing Baekhyun’s worried eyes on him, “really, I’m fine. Besides, won’t I look a lot more handsome with a war scar?”  
  
Baekhyun sighs. Oh Sehun is too young to be fighting a war, let alone leading an army into one, and yet here he is, Captain of the Guards of Dakrya, just like his father before him. But he still looks like the child who helped Baekhyun in the Beacon seven years ago.  
  
“How did this start?” he asks, gesturing to the smoking ruins of what used to be the marketplace.  
  
“The day after you left, the Hiereus publicly accused Kyungsoo of blasphemy and _ubris_. He said the Despotes is a... well, a tyrant, and a traitor, and he also said that he’s no longer doing the interest of the city and that he’ll lead us on the path of destruction.”  
  
“Well, wow. He didn’t go easy on him.”  
  
“He asked the people to fight in order to dethrone the tyrant.”  
  
“Did the people of Dakrya listen?” worries Baekhyun.  
  
“Some did. Some didn’t. Some didn’t even realize a war had started until it was too late. That’s why we decided to turn on the Beacon’s light. We had to warn the people.”  
  
Baekhyun turns to look at the black tower, its red light dim and gloomy. “What about the people who weren’t in the Agorà? What about the Outer Circles?”  
  
The miners, the children, the waiting wives. Most of the population of Dakrya, to be honest. They wouldn’t be able to see the Beacon from their little hole-houses dug in the galleries, wouldn’t they?  
  
Sehun shakes his head. “The first two days were a carnage. When the fights started and the Weepers realized a lot of people were on our side instead of theirs, they decided to shut the doors of the mines, leaving everyone to wander in the tunnels. We charged against them and managed to conquer most of the mines again in less than a few hours, but for many of the miners who were inside it was already too late.”  
  
His words fall into a heavy silence, one Baekhyun has to force himself to break.  
  
“What the hell happened?” he blurts out. “I was away for, how long, two weeks? How did you manage to do this much damage in such a short time?”  
  
“You act like you’re the only thing keeping this place together,” shoots back Sehun. Well, sometimes Baekhyun thinks he really is. It’s the only reasonable explanation of why things manages to go downhill every time he’s away for more than a week.  
  
“I just want to know what evil spirit possessed the Despotes’ mind to make him think that _this_ ,” he says, pointing towards the barricade, where the clash of the melee can still be heard in the distance, “was a good idea!”  
  
“It wasn’t us,” complains Sehun. “We didn’t start the fight, the Temple did.”  
  
“Did they know about the demon?” asks Baekhyun, desperate.  
  
Sehun shakes his head. “I really don’t know. But that would explain why they were so eager to declare war on Kyungsoo.”  
  
“And where is the demon now?”  
  
“I don’t know that either. The Despotes knows for sure, but after he was almost killed he’s quite reluctant to reveal his secrets to anyone, even me, and I’ve been his friend since he was only the youngest prince of Dakrya, way before he became the Despotes.”  
  
Baekhyun clings to the small hope that Kyungsoo knows where Chanyeol is. He hopes he was just afraid something might happen to Chanyeol and so he just hid him like he did the day he was crowned Despotes of Dakrya.  
  
Behind them, the city fights, people of Dakrya against people of Dakrya.  
  
“Do you think we can win?” he asks, and Sehun shakes his head. “I don’t know. People here really trust the Temple, they believe in the word of the Klæin, they believe in the Unseen. Many have sided with the Weepers.”  
  
Sehun is right, but Baekhyun knows the Despotes is loved by his people. The last of the last, the poorest, miners and beggars, were charmed by this young, melancholic boy with big eyes, who raised the taxes for the temple and lowered them for the people living in the slums. People have priorities, and surviving ranks higher than praying sometimes.  
  
“Come here, the Despotes will be glad to know you’ve survived.” Baekhyun doubts that. Kyungsoo didn’t like him from the beginning, and he never understood Chanyeol’s strange liking towards Baekhyun either. “He thought you were dead, you know? We all did. When I saw you before, I thought I was looking at a ghost. We were sure the Temple had sent instructions to have you killed as soon as you stepped in Pophos. We sent Ten back as soon as we could but...”  
  
“Did everyone but me know about that Ten kid?” explodes Baekhyun.  
  
Sehun shuts his mouth. He opens it. He closes it again. “I’m not supposed to say anything about this,” he says, in the end. “You should ask the Despotes about him, if you want.”  
  
Oh, Baekhyun will. He definitely will. But he doesn’t care about Ten right now, he only cares about Chanyeol and knowing he’s alive.  
  
“So he did arrive in time to save you, I’m glad.”  
  
“Yes, he told me a little about the situation here in Dakrya, but to be honest I didn’t think things would be so dangerous down here. Thank you for saving me, before.”  
  
Sehun shakes his head and pats his back, letting his hand linger on Baekhyun’s shoulder. Baekhyun has known him since he was an awkward teenager and now he’s the captain of the guards of Dakrya, and in all this time Sehun has never been afraid of Baekhyun’s eyes. Baekhyun might actually believe him when he acts like he cares.  
  
“Come on, survivor, we’re here.” The doors of the Beacon, like the rest of the tower, are black. They used to be silver, and they still are, but time and the _koal_ dust floating around Dakrya has made them rust, blackening them from the edges to the center, where little speckles of silver still remain. They’re locked, of course, as they should be during an emergency, but there’s a secondary entry in one of the lower levels, and that’s where Sehun takes Baekhyun.  
  
“The Despotes is in the throne room. The guards will let you in,” he says. “I need to go back to the barricade and see if we can conquer a few meters from the soldiers of the Temple. My men need their captain.”  
  
“Sehun,” shouts Baekhyun before the boy can disappear again, his dark blue uniform blending with the dark streets, the dark houses, the dark vault of the cave above their heads.  
  
There are so many things Baekhyun wants to ask. _Why are you fighting the temple? Do you really believe in this revolution? Can you win this war?_  
  
He can see Sehun narrow his eyes as he waits for Baekhyun’s question. In the end, he settles for a simple, “Good luck!” Even from so far away, Sehun smile is unmistakable and bright. Little lights in the darkness, we’re all chasing them, thinks Baekhyun.+  
  
The guards don’t try to stop him as he rushes through the doors and up the stairs, running until he’s breathless. They all know him, they’ve seen him come and go. He’s a familiar figure, and only now he takes the time to wonder if they think the same about Ten. How often did that boy come and go? Who else knew? Why didn’t Kyungsoo tell Baekhyun?  
  
The doors of the throne room are already open. Kyungsoo is alone inside, checking some maps at the table. Baekhyun can see his hunched shoulder, his figure bent and lowered as he tries to read something. He doesn’t see them but he can imagine his eyes narrowing, his puckered lips and the way his hands ball into fists whenever he’s annoyed.  
  
The last seven years didn’t do much for the height of the Despotes of Dakrya. He’s still short, with delicate full lips and serious, oddly focused eyes that look like they can pierce through Baekhyun’s soul, peeking at his deepest secrets. But, this time, when Kyungsoo’s eyes stare up at Baekhyun’s own, they’re not angry and unimpressed, but wide and full of wonder, joy, hope. And then, unannounced, guilt comes.  
  
Baekhyun doesn’t need to ask what has been of Chanyeol. He was right. The time of miracles is over.  
  
“I’m sorry, Baekhyun,” says Do Kyungsoo, Despotes of Dakrya. “I’m so sorry. They found Chanyeol. I don’t know where they took him.”  
  


~

  
  
  
  


**13**

  
  
The Despotes is different from the idea Baekhyun had of him. Somehow, in his imagination, in the foolish thought of an ignorant Harbinger, he had thought the Despotes would be just like the statues guarding the Beacon. Tall, imposing, with inscrutable eyes.  
  
But this Despotes, this Do Kyungsoo who, according to the Weepers of the Klæn, has been elected by the people of Dakrya against the opinion of the Hiereus of the Temple, just looks young. Young and bratty. And petty. And still powerful. Not imposing, not tall nor inscrutable. But powerful.  
  
“Who are you for Chanyeol?” asks the Despotes, drumming with his fingers on the table when Baekhyun doesn’t answer. Baekhyun simply looks back at him – forgetting a mere Harbinger like him is not supposed to look directly at the highest figure of power of the whole city – and doesn’t answer.  
  
To tell the honest truth, Baekhyun doesn’t know what he is for Chanyeol. A little brother? A friend? His only source of company in a cold, dark world where he doesn’t belong – where he doesn’t remember? Someone to pity? Someone to cherish? Someone to protect? He doesn’t know.  
  
But he knows what Chanyeol is for him. Bright. Real. Endless. There’s no limit to the horizons Chanyeol opened for him. Chanyeol talked about the things he could remember, about flowers and fireflies flying among the grains of wheat, about lazy afternoons spent down at the river, watching the salmons swimming back against the flow to go home, skylarks singing among the trees, nightingales eating blackberries from Chanyeol’s own hands. Chanyeol talked about everything Baekhyun has ever wanted – everything he’s never known how to dream. He gave reality to those dreams, painted them in Baekhyun’s imagination with colors so vivid sometimes Baekhyun wakes up thinking he’s just been able to see them in his deep slumber.  
  
Chanyeol took Baekhyun’s hands and didn’t try to hurt him – the first person in Baekhyun’s life since the Temple, since he became a Harbinger, since Yoona died, the first and the only person who didn’t hurt Baekhyun. And Baekhyun was young, he was dirty and ruined, his legs coarse from the floggings, his hands scratched and raw, scars on his forearms, scars on his back, gruesome and hideous, a lurid boy of the slums, a cursed boy, a scarred boy no one cared about. But Chanyeol took Baekhyun’s face in his hands and told him he had pretty eyes and Baekhyun’s cheeks flushed red, warmth blossoming in his chest, flowing past his ribs, reaching the point of his fingertips. And, just like that, Baekhyun was in love.  
  
And now Chanyeol is gone and Baekhyun has never wanted to punch someone more than he wants to punch the boy in front of him, Despotes or not.  
  
“You don’t answer? Are you deaf? Or are you mute?”  
  
Do Kyungsoo is one of those boys that, back in the slums where Baekhyun used to live, would’ve become either Baekhyun’s best friend or his worst enemy.  
  
He stares at Baekhyun, taking in his thin face, his silver hair, silver eyes, and grimaces. “From what Chanyeol told me, I expected... I don’t know... Something different. I can’t really see what he sees in you.”  
  
Do Kyungsoo talks about Chanyeol in a way Baekhyun would never dare, with a familiarity that borders on being insulting. Where Baekhyun couldn’t even allow himself to taste Chanyeol’s name on the tip of his tongue or whisper it in the darkness of his room, too fearful that someone could hear it, Kyungsoo says it out loud, as if he’s bragging, as if he wants to show off in front of Baekhyun. As if he owns Chanyeol.  
  
Kyungsoo looks down on him and Baekhyun’s fists tighten at his sides because how dares he, this boy with soft hands and unmarred skin, how can he look down on Baekhyun, who risks his life in the maze every day? Maybe Chanyeol’s words are finally getting to him, but seeing this boy who became Despotes of the city for a twist of fate, this boy who couldn’t survive one minute in the maze, makes Baekhyun so angry. He doesn’t get up from where he’s kneeling on the floor, but he raises his head and stares back, impudent and angry.  
  
Kyungsoo must have been able to see the change of posture in Baekhyun because his eyes narrow, his own body tightens, the tension in his jaw visible. Only then Baekhyun realizes his power is showing, the moon scythe in his eyes turning into a vortex of silver.  
  
Kyungsoo almost takes a step back, the Despotes of Dakrya, the first or the second most powerful man in the city, afraid of Baekhyun.  
  
“I know you can’t curse me,” says Kyungsoo, but his voice shakes. “Chanyeol told me.”  
At the mention of Chanyeol’s name, Baekhyun can feel power surge in his eyes. He shakes, suddenly hyper-aware of the magic woven in the walls around him. The Beacon shakes with him, all the protective spells and barrier casted on the building reacting to Baekhyun’s power one by one, and this time the Despotes does take a step back, and for a moment he looks terrified. (For a moment, just a moment, Baekhyun can taste triumph. He feels stupid and young and in love, he feels fearless.)  
  
The door slams open and the captain of the guards barges inside the room to see what’s happening. The only thing he sees is two boys, staring at each other. The Despotes of Dakrya, looking as pale as a ghost, and one Harbinger, kneeling on the floor, his silver hair covering his eyes.  
  
“Is everything alright, Your Grace?”  
  
The Despotes simply nods, still dazed, and gestures for the man to leave. The guard hesitates, eyes darting between the Harbinger and the ruler of the city, but the Despotes insists.  
  
“Commander Oh, please. I’m still questioning the Harbinger and as you can see he’s still wearing his shackles. The situation is under control. But, now that you make me notice, he does look kind of uncomfortable. I think the restraints can go.”  
  
“Your Grace!”  
  
“Commander Oh,” only says the Despotes, and the man has no other choice than to uncuff Baekhyun, grimacing at the glint of silver in the boy’s eyes. Then, with a last, antsy glance at the situation inside the room and at the lonely figure of the Despotes, he leaves, closing the door behind himself.  
  
Silence falls between the two boys. The Despotes looks down at Baekhyun, again, with a frown. Baekhyun glares back. The Despotes snorts.  
  
“You can get up.”  
  
Baekhyun does it, barely registering the pain as his legs struggle against the numbness of being forced in the same position for a long time.  
  
“They call you favorite of the phoi, don’t you? Because you survived five years in the maze. Impressive. Favorite or not, you already broke the law once. If you do it again, I will personally make sure it’s the last thing you do.”  
  
Baekhyun nods, his lips drawn so tight their color disappears. The Despotes stares at him for a couple of tense moments, before something shifts in his face and he turns back, towards the window.  
  
“You can go, Byun Baekhyun, I deem you not guilty.”  
  
“Wait, what about Chanyeol? Where is he?”  
  
“The demon’s whereabouts don’t concern you anymore. Forget about him.”  
  
“No, wait. You can’t. Tell me where he is,” he begs, desperate.  
  
But Do Kyungsoo, Despotes of Dakrya, just turns back to him, a strange light in his eyes.  
  
“Chanyeol gave his freedom away for you two times. The first time when he brought you back to Dakrya, the day of your First Flight. He was captured that day, you know?”  
  
No, Baekhyun didn’t know. No, no, no. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. He gasps, struggling to breathe, anxiety clogging his throat.  
  
“Oh, so you didn’t know? Maybe I wasn’t supposed to tell you. Ops.” He sits on his throne, probably aware of how deeply he’s hurt Baekhyun. He doesn’t stop. “And the second time was when he accepted to talk to me. He never talked to my father, you know? Never did anything more than laughing in his face. But he talked to me. He begged me to save your life. You would’ve been dead twice by now, if it wasn’t for his help. And you come here and you flash your cursed eyes at me? Are you crazy? Do me a favor, Byun Baekhyun, don’t waste the life Chanyeol so gladly sacrificed himself for. Go away, before I have you hanged in front of the Temple.”  
  
He calls the guards and they drag a floored Baekhyun away, to the Temple.  
  
When the Hiereus wakes up, Baekhyun is flogged until he can barely walk. He can barely feel anything but the hollow cold in his chest.  
  


~

  
  
  
  


**41**

  
  
“You never told me about the other Harbingers.”  
  
Kyungsoo looks up, and for a moment he looks more alive and less like a ghost of guilt. Baekhyun hates him for it. He should feel guilty. He _is_ guilty. He lost Chanyeol.  
  
“You mean Ten?”  
  
“I mean everything. The little game you, Donghae, and this Queen of Apistein, assuming she’s even real-”  
  
“She is,” says Kyungsoo, stubbornly. “Her name is Seungwan.”  
  
“That’s not the point. I can’t believe you’ve been so stupid. I can’t believe you thought of this incredibly stupid plan in your big, black tower and you didn’t tell me. You didn’t even need other Harbingers. You had me!”  
  
“It’s not like I wanted to keep you out of it. I wouldn’t have even needed other Harbingers if I could have just used you, but the Temple was watching you closely. It was too dangerous.”  
  
Baekhyun snorts, and even that sounds aggressive. “Dangerous? Are you really talking about danger? To me? Do you know how many rules I had already broken for you? Do you know how many times I…” He stops to take a breath and calm the white noise in his ears. “I almost died for you, countless times, but this was too dangerous for me?”  
  
“Chanyeol begged to keep you out of this, to keep you safe,” says Kyungsoo, low, and the words pierce through the veil of rage clouding Baekhyun’s mind. He deflates, immediately. “It was our deal, the last one.”  
  
Kyungsoo looks at Baekhyun, almost as if he’s begging.  
  
“He promised he would lead our people to a new place where we would have built our new city. New mines, new fields, new walls. No temples. He promised me he would’ve taken us there.”  
  
“At what price?” Baekhyun finds himself asking. Because there must have been a price. There’s always a price. This is the world Baekhyun lives in.  
  
“You.”  
  
In the deafening silence of the Beacon, only broken by the explosions of the ongoing battle outside, Baekhyun sighs. “What an idiot.”  
  
“What an idiot, indeed. He asked to leave with you, nothing else.”  
  
The floor shakes, the entire tower shakes. The whole city is shaking. Baekhyun is the one who’s shaking.  
  
“I can’t believe you let them take him,” he says, a broken whisper.  
  
Kyungsoo refuses to meet his eyes. It must really burn, the great Despotes of Dakrya, scolded by a simple Harbinger.  
  
“Well, it’s not like I had a choice,” he mutters. “They showed up at the door with magic, they slaughtered my guards and they simply took him. There was a mole in the palace, a young service girl, but they killed her too, so I can’t even know how much they know about Chanyeol.”  
  
Baekhyun swallows a curse.  
  
“And whose fault is that? I told you, I fucking told you this would happen, and yet did you listen to me? No. You waited until I was conveniently out of the city to fuck everything up.”  
  
His voice grows, a crescendo of anger that builds and builds until he’s shouting and he doesn’t care. He doesn’t even have a point, because if he had been in the city he would’ve died trying to save Chanyeol and now there would be no one planning his rescue.  
  
“You were supposed to keep him safe,” he screams, and maybe he wants to make Kyungsoo feel guilty, maybe he just wants to make him angry. He doesn’t care. Kyungsoo has only ever had this thing over Baekhyun. He could keep Chanyeol safe. Now, he’s lost this right too.  
  
“Where is he?” he asks, between pants, when he’s too tired to shout anymore.  
  
“If only I knew. We’ve been fighting for days, trying to take the Temple. I think they took him there, since they can’t kill him.”  
  
The Temple. The dungeons of the Temple. Baekhyun shivers, thinking about what they’ll do to Chanyeol down there – what they did to Baekhyun down there. He can taste the blood, a metallic, sour taste on his bottom lip. Chanyeol can’t die, but he can bleed. He can suffer. He can cry.  
  
“I’m going to save him.”  
  
“Stop being stupid. I need you here. You have to lead Sehun’s soldiers against the Weepers. If you’re with us, we can use the tunnels underneath the city and the mines. We can win this war, Baekhyun.”  
  
He doesn’t even let him finish. “I don’t care. I don’t fucking care about this war, Kyungsoo. I don’t care if, in the end, you’re ruling or the temple is ruling. I don’t care about Dakrya or Pophos or anywhere else in this forsaken hell.”  
  
He crosses the room in quick strides, closing onto Kyungsoo. Time has passed and they’re not seventeen years old anymore, awkward in their bodies, voices raw and cracking and shaking with how young they felt in this old, old world. They’re both adults now. Kyungsoo didn’t grow any taller, but he’s stronger now, wiser or crazier, Baekhyun can’t tell. Baekhyun himself has changed. He’s different from the scrawny teenager he was the first time they met, he’s been shaped by the maze and by the warmth of Chanyeol’s hands, by the sharp claws of the Furies and the softness of Chanyeol’s lips.  
  
They could’ve been friends, he and Kyungsoo, maybe even something more. But Chanyeol has always stood between them, the only thing keeping them apart and the only thing keeping them together. And now he’s gone and Baekhyun has no one else to blame than Kyungsoo. He knows he’s being unfair. He knows Kyungsoo probably blames himself for what happened more than Baekhyun will ever be able to imagine. He doesn’t really care about Kyungsoo though. Kyungsoo has lost the only person Baekhyun has ever cared about and for what? Revolution. What a nice word.  
  
“I don’t care about your revolution,” he says, whispering against Kyungsoo’s lips, closer than ever. “You’re all chasing a dream.”  
  
“Hope, we’re chasing hope, Baekhyun.”  
  
“There’s no hope, Kyungsoo. Your revolution is built on tears. Mine, yours, the tears of the people of Dakrya, Chanyeol’s tears. You’re playing with so many lives just because you can, but you’re not going to obtain anything in the end.”  
  
“I will obtain a better future for my people.”  
  
“You will just add misery to misery. You really want to know what your revolution is about?”  
Baekhyun extends a hand to Kyungsoo’s wrist. He wraps his fingers around it, raising it until it’s between them, then slowly, deliberately, he intertwines their fingers together. Kyungsoo lets him do it, mesmerized. His skin is smooth, soft, and so cold.  
  
“What do you feel? Is my hand warm? Is my hand cold?”  
  
Kyungsoo squeezes his hand, brow furrowed and eyes squinting as he tries to understand what is going on. Baekhyun squeezes back, the gesture so intimate, and yet so cold. “See? You don’t know. You can’t feel anything.”  
  
“That’s not true, I-” He opens his mouth, he closes it. There’s a dawning on his face, and then complete terror. Baekhyun holds his hand, tight.  
  
“Don’t worry, it’s alright, breathe. I didn’t know either, you know? And how could I have known? You can’t miss something you’ve never known, can you?”  
  
Kyungsoo takes his hand back, flexes his fingers. He’s so pale. And scared. “What does it mean?”  
  
“We can’t feel the cold, Kyungsoo. We know what it is, we know what it means to be cold, but we don’t feel the cold. We don’t feel anything.” Baekhyun tastes the words in his mouth slowly, savoring them. He knows them so well, their shape, their weight, the space they take in his mind. These are the words he can’t tell anyone, not even Chanyeol, because Chanyeol is a creature of the sun, light in his eyes and warmth in his hands, and he can’t understand what it’s like to be a creature of the earth, dark eyes and cold hands. There are things Baekhyun is ashamed to tell Chanyeol.  
  
“That’s… That’s impossible.”  
  
“The Klæin says the Unseen stole the warmth from us a long time ago. Because warm creatures cannot survive in this cold, in this darkness. Have you ever read the Klæin, Despotes? I did.”  
  
“Did you believe it?”  
  
Baekhyun chuckles. “Some things. Some things you believe, some things you don’t believe. Some things you’re forced to believe, because you don’t know anything else. I don’t know if it’s true that a god took our warmth away to allow us to live in the maze, but since I met Chanyeol I’ve started to ask myself a lot of questions. Why are we here? What is the meaning of our life? We’re born, we live and we die always in the same place, believing in the same things. We live our entire life like prisoners.”  
  
“What are you trying to say, Baekhyun?”  
  
“When you told me to go back to the ruins of Dakrya, the Oldest-Dakrya, and find the original book of the Klæin, I told you I couldn’t find it. That was a lie. I found it and I read it Kyungsoo. I read it and now I can tell you that it doesn’t matter what I do, what you do, what the Weepers or the people or the soldiers do. At the end of the day, we’re all trapped. Trapped in our little cities of clay and dust, trapped in the maze like the toys of a petty god, trapped in our wars and in our fears. It doesn’t matter what we do, we’ll still be trapped, forever. That’s why what you’re doing is useless. That’s why I need to save Chanyeol.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
“Because Chanyeol, unlike you and me, doesn’t belong to this world. Chanyeol belongs to the light. I won’t allow him to rot down here with us. I will take him home.”  
  
He will take Chanyeol to the border, at the river Styx, the barrier between this world and the other, where no other Harbinger has ever dared to go. Baekhyun will do this, for Chanyeol, his last wish. His last stage. His last trip in the maze, before his time comes.  
  


~

  
  
  
  


**14**

The staircase that leads to the chambers of the Despotes seems endless, a long spiral coiling against the walls of the Beacon until the very top.  
  
Baekhyun looks up, counting the steps in his head to calm down. One, two, six, twelve, thirty-three. He can’t count after that, but he probably won’t ever get to that thirty-third step. His right leg pulses, silver poison flowing freely in his veins. A normal person would’ve died, probably, but Baekhyun has already survived Fury poison once. The silver scars on his back prove it. He can feel his body fighting against the poison again, sweat trickling down his neck and into the damp fabric of his shirt. Nine, ten, eleven, he counts, forcing his body to move. He loses count, but it doesn’t really matter – Chanyeol once said numbers are destined to oblivion anyway.  
  
The world spins, a kaleidoscope of black and greys, red and violet for the magic fires keeping the Beacon barely lit. Baekhyun collapses against the wall, trembling. When he tries to get up, his legs give up under him not once, but twice. He would probably feel an unimaginable pain if it wasn’t for the painkillers the healers at the temple forced him to take.  
  
“Are you alright?” calls a young voice, before he can black out on the spot. “Oh, you must be the Harbinger Kyungsoo talked about.”  
  
Baekhyun’s eyes shoot open to see who has the courage to call the Despotes by his given name, a privilege only granted to the most powerful members of the Council of Dakrya. He finds himself looking at a tall boy, maybe a couple of years younger than him, who wears the colors of the Despotes like a second skin.  
  
“Who are you?” he asks, breathless.  
  
“Oh Sehun. My father is the captain of the Army of Dakrya.”  
  
Oh, Baekhyun seems to remember the stern face of the man who threw him out the last time he was here. The man who was afraid a Harbinger would hurt the Despotes. But his son doesn’t seem afraid of Baekhyun.  
  
“You look like you need some help,” he says, offering his arm to the Harbinger. “Why didn’t the guards take you to Kyungsoo’s room if you’re this hurt?”  
  
_Because the guards are all afraid of me,_ Baekhyun almost snaps, but in the end he leans his weight on the boy, almost collapsing against his skinny frame.  
  
“Woah, be careful. Come on, one step at a time. What the hell happened to you?”  
  
“A Fury,” he deadpans. “In the maze.”  
  
“Cool,” replies the boy, with a shrug.  
  
Cool, just like that. Baekhyun snorts to himself. “What happened to being afraid of Harbingers?”  
  
“Kyungsoo is not afraid of you.”  
  
Of course the fucking Despotes of Dakrya is not afraid of a dirty Harbinger. Baekhyun wants to laugh. “You’re not the Despotes though.”  
  
“Should I then?”  
  
“Be the Despotes?”  
  
“No, be afraid.”  
  
Baekhyun closes his eyes and lets the boy carry all his weight up. “No, you shouldn’t be afraid, Oh Sehun.”  
  
Sehun smiles and he looks younger than he is. “Good, because you’re not scary. Not at all. But you should take more care of yourself, Harbinger Byun Baekhyun. This is your stop,” he says, gently helping Baekhyun stand on his own.  
  
“I’ll see you around, then,” he says. He leaves before Baekhyun can stop him, jumping over three steps at a time and disappearing down the spiral staircase in a moment.  
  
Baekhyun doesn’t think he’ll see Sehun around again. To be honest, he didn’t expect to be summoned again by the Despotes. It’s been almost six months since they’ve last seen each other. Six months without Chanyeol. Six months in which Baekhyun has almost died so many times he can’t even count them. Yesterday’s epic failure was only the last of a long series of epic failures. This time he got mauled by a Chimera and he lost his letter. If the Furies don’t kill him soon, the Hiereus of the Temple will.  
  
“You can get inside, you know?”  
  
The Despotes’ voice comes through the door and Baekhyun jumps, startled. When he enters the room, Kyungsoo is standing in front of the same table, the same model of Dakrya Baekhyun saw the last time he was here. He looks older, harder. He hasn’t grown up in weight but he looks bigger.  
  
“Have you called?”  
  
The Despotes snorts. “Manners. I see you haven’t learned them since last time.”  
  
One of the corners of Baekhyun’s mouth lifts in a smirk. “The Weepers couldn’t beat manners into me in the last four years, isn’t it a bit arrogant to think that you would succeed in just one meeting where they have failed for years?”  
  
He glowers in the satisfaction of seeing Kyungsoo’s fists tighten against the paper of the map he’s holding, even if his face stays blank. When his hands relax again, he puts the map down and finally looks at Baekhyun, taking in his poor condition and the flakes of silver in his eyes.  
  
“Do you have a death wish, Byun Baekhyun?” he asks. Baekhyun doesn’t even know if he’s referring to his rudeness or to the wound on his leg and the scratches on his neck, but he laughs in his face anyway.  
  
“A death wish? No, not really. But I don’t have any will to live either. I have news for you, Do Kyungsoo,” and this time Kyungsoo does pale in rage at the careless use of his name. “Life sucks if you’re a Harbinger. Who will kill me first? You or the monsters out there? Or the Hiereus when he won’t need me anymore? It’s not like I really have a choice. I will die anyway.”  
  
Kyungsoo takes his time to answer, gesturing for Baekhyun to sit down. His eyes widen when the boy kneels on the floor.  
  
“On the chair, you stupid... On the chair, please.”  
  
The Despotes begging a Harbinger to do something. Baekhyun is probably dreaming right now. How strong was that herbal tea the healers gave him?  
  
“Don’t you dare die on me, I still need you. Chanyeol will never forgive me if I let you die.”  
  
“It is not Chanyeol’s choice,” says Baekhyun, frowning. Oh, Chanyeol has already made his choice. Two times he’s sacrificed his life for Baekhyun. And Baekhyun has tried, no one can say he hasn’t tried, but there’s a reason Harbingers usually die young and it’s because the maze eats them slowly, on the inside. There’s a darkness they fight in the tunnels on the maze, filled with Furies and dangers, and there’s a darkness inside their hearts, made of fear, of loneliness, of uselessness. What’s the meaning of being alive when you have nothing to live for? When no one loves you and your friends are dying, one after another, and you’re only a tool in the hands of people who hate you? Harbingers are cursed, doomed to death since their eyes burn silver. And, after dying, just like numbers, Harbingers are doomed to oblivion.  
  
“So you really want to die.”  
  
“I want to live. But I’m not alive.”  
  
This is not life, after all. Baekhyun is just languishing. Waiting for the moon scythe in his eyes to come to a full circle, so that he can die.  
  
Chanyeol said it wasn’t a moon scythe, but an eclipse. But Chanyeol is gone and sometimes Baekhyun wonders if he ever existed in the first place.  
  
“You’re really a mess, aren’t you?”  
  
“I might be a mess, but I’ve seen things in the Netherworld you can’t even imagine. And what did you see, Do Kyungsoo, except the walls of your tall tower? You’re just a kid playing king in this hole full of holes you like to call a city. Who’s the biggest mess among the two of us?”  
  
Kyungsoo gets up and that’s it, Baekhyun has done it. His poisonous tongue has finally gotten him killed. It’s not like he wasn’t expecting it. It’s not like he wasn’t waiting for it.  
  
_Sorry Chanyeol,_ he thinks, and he doesn’t feel sorry at all. Just jealous, and petty, and miserable. And tired, above everything else, Baekhyun is tired. There’s nothing left for him to fight for, so he might as well make Kyungsoo break his promise to Chanyeol and kill him.  
  
He closes his eyes and waits. Kyungsoo’s call for the guards to come and take him away never comes.  
  
Instead, Kyungsoo walks towards him, staring at Baekhyun like it’s the first time he sees him, a new light in his eyes. “Tell me then.”  
  
“What?” splutters Baekhyun, confused.  
  
“Tell me about this world you saw. Tell me about the unimaginable things you see. Tell me about the Netherworld. Tell me about the maze. Tell me everything, Baekhyun.”  
  


~

  
  
  
  


**42**

  
  
“Are you actually crazy?”  
  
Baekhyun pulls at the hand holding his wrist – a cold hand, but Sehun’s eyes are so warm – and free himself from the Sehun’s grip. He doesn’t answer.  
  
“How far can you take me?” he asks instead. “I need to reach the Eastern Well of the Black, or any well of the Black to be honest.”  
  
Sehun throws his arms to the ceiling in an universal gesture of disbelief and annoyance.  
  
“Didn’t you hear me? We’re at war! War!”  
  
“If you don’t want to help me, I’ll go on my own.”  
  
“You’ll die at the first crossroad. And you won’t be able to save anyone!”  
  
“If I stay here I won’t be able to save anyone anyway!”  
  
He doesn’t realize he’s shouting until his voice echoes on the walls of the tunnel and the chatter around them dies down to an awkward silence. Baekhyun looks at the ground to avoid the worried, hostile eyes of the soldiers around him, but he can’t close his ears to not listen the whispers slithering among the troops. _A Harbinger, an enemy, what is he doing here?_  
  
Sehun curses.  
  
“Do you have time to be idle? We’re losing a war here!” At his angry bark, the soldiers go back to what they were doing and the chatter starts again, even louder, as if they’re trying to convince their captain they’re not eavesdropping. They are.  
  
“Look,” Baekhyun says, his voice falling to a low whisper only Sehun can hear, “if you can’t help me just tell me what you know about the position of the troops of the Temple and I’ll leave on my own.”  
  
Sehun scratches his head. “The Despotes doesn’t want you to leave.”  
  
“The Despotes can’t stop me,” says Baekhyun, an air of resolute challenge in his eyes when he thinks of Kyungsoo shaking in his throne, thinking of what Baekhyun has just told him. Sehun sends him a cautionary glare.  
  
“But I could. I could have my men throw you in prison and you’d be forced to stay there.”  
  
Baekhyun looks up at Sehun and he can see himself reflected in his eyes, his silver hair and eyes. He looks like he has nothing to lose. He looks like himself, whoever that person is. He takes a step towards Sehun, closing the distance between them until his voice is gracing the angle of Sehun’s jaw, close to the shell of his ear, until he can feel the itch in the boy’s breath at their closeness. “You can’t stop me,” he whispers, and even his words are silver.  
  
Sehun takes a step back, dazed. “You will die, won’t you?”  
  
“This is my destiny,” Baekhyun says. “And yours, and everyone else’s. I’ve thought about it for a long time, but I think I know how I should go.”  
  
Sehun’s bottom lips shakes. The short moment of weakness fits his face, gives him an air of youth that reminds Baekhyun of the young, rich kid he met seven years ago in the Beacon. Where did that boy go? How did he grow into this tall, severe young man, his shoulders large enough to endure the weight of the army of Dakrya and his features sharp and jagged like razor-edges?  
  
“The Temple has half of the Agorà, the Oriental side of the city, most of the mines. The Little Princess, the Three Queens, the Fallen King. All the Circle of the Artisans has fallen in their hands, but we still have most of the Forgers. And they have all the six biggest wells of the Black,” Sehun says, in the end, his words heavy and laced with sadness.  
  
“What about the dead vein near the Circle of the Guards?” Where Baekhyun used to live, between slate and granite stained black with fine dust coming from the _koal_ mine. That vein was officially closed three years ago, after the main gallery collapsed on itself and almost destroyed the Circle of the Guards too.  
  
“It’s clogged. It doesn’t lead anywhere.”  
  
“The main vein is clogged, but what about the exhausted secondary veins? They were never closed.”  
  
“I don’t think it’s...” No, Sehun doesn’t think. But Sehun was the son of a member of the Council, not the son of a miner. He’s never played hide-and-seek in those exhausted tunnels. He’s never heard Kang from the third house on the left say that the third son of Seo Yi-Sook lost his way home while playing in the dead tunnels and was found wandering at the entrance of the Oriental Well of the Black, near the Temple, three days later. That child would never speak again.  
  
Sehun doesn’t know anything about the mines, but Baekhyun knows more than enough.  
“It’s alright, Sehun. I’ve survived in the maze, what could ever happen to me in Dakrya?”  
  
It’s painful, the way Sehun’s hand clenches on the lapel of Baekhyun’s Harbinger uniform. It’s painful to watch, but that’s also how Baekhyun felt for years, every time he realized he was just cannon fodder for everyone in this city. Almost everyone.  
  
“Why are you so stupid?” says Sehun, as his fingers leave the fabric, lingering only to smooth a wrinkle away. “Do you like that demon so much that you’re risking your life for his?”  
  
“I really have nothing to lose, Oh Sehun. But thank you for trying. And thank you for helping me, a long time ago. I would’ve liked to be your friend.”  
  
He leaves, before he can hear Sehun’s words.  
  
“I thought we were already friends.”  
  
It would be cruel, at this point, to answer.  
  


~

  
  
  
  


**43**

  
  
Kyungsoo asks and Baekhyun tells. Because he has so much to say and no one who would ever listen. Because he wants to see Chanyeol one more time before he drowns. Because it’s empowering to have someone like the Despotes listening to Byun Baekhyun the Harbinger, him and only him. Baekhyun tells because it’s his duty as a Harbinger, and maybe there’s a message hidden between the endless turns of the maze, among the relics, in the bloody claws of monsters born from the belly of the earth, sons of darkness and cold. Baekhyun tells a tale of a prince trapped in lonely towers with dragons waiting outside.  
  
“Would it be possible,” Kyungsoo asks, “for someone who’s not a Harbinger, to move in the maze?”  
  
He doesn’t think so. It’s been attempted many times, but Yoona has warned Baekhyun against taking someone else in the maze with him. “There are rules to be followed,” he warns.  
  
“I’m the Despotes. I make the rules.”  
  
But in the maze, Do Kyungsoo is just a man, the son of a man, who was the son of a man who ruled over men. He’s nobody.  
  
“You’re not the ruler of the maze. The maze is your ruler.”  
  
The maze decides whether you live or you die, how you live and how you die, court judge and executioner. The maze talks and its words are law.  
  
“And what does the maze says?” asks Kyungsoo, impatient and cold, fingers drumming against the armrest of his throne, “can you tell me?”  
  
“I don’t speak the language of the maze so I cannot tell you what it says, but I can tell you what history says. Only Harbingers are supposed to be in the maze. Everyone else must stay in the Buried Cities.”  
  
“That’s it?” asks Kyungsoo.  
  
It’s the foundation of this world. There’s nothing else but this.  
  
“I know for sure that the King of Algedon tried to lead an army into the maze when I was a child. My father told me about it.”  
  
“The King of Algedon died in the maze. Together with most of his army and the Harbinger who was leading it. The Furies torn them to pieces, all of them, and left there their rests.” He sends a short glance at the map, still open on the table, but he doesn’t really look at it. He doesn’t need to. Most of the map is already in his head, that piece of paper just a mere vessel to show Kyungsoo what he’s talking about. “Under the city of Algedon, fifteen levels, South-West.”  
  
Kyungsoo turns the pages until he reaches the right level and follows Baekhyun’s direction with his fingers to a cave. Baekhyun has signed three red cruxes on it. “They’re still there,” he says, when Kyungsoo looks at him with questioning eyes. “Their rests, I mean. Bones, hair, clothes. I stumbled upon them by chance three months ago.”  
  
“What do you mean they’re still there?”  
  
“Where would they go? They’re dead. No one has touched them in years.”  
  
Kyungsoo’s face darkens. He corrugates his brow and pinches his chin. He looks like he’s thinking about something really dark, but he doesn’t share his thoughts with Baekhyun. Not yet, at least.  
  
He browses through the envelope of wrinkled pages that Baekhyun has collected in the last two years since he became a Harbinger, covering them in a neat, clear handwriting. (It was so messy in the beginning, and the librarian of the temple would whack his fingers with a wood stick until he started getting it right.  
  
“What is this?” he asks, softly. “What are these ruins?”  
  
Baekhyun shuffles closer, leaning down to see what Kyungsoo is looking at, and his lips close in a grimace. Chanyeol’s voice resounds in his memory. _“It’s dangerous. Trust me, stay away from that place, Baekhyun.”_  
  
“Just ruins, sir,” he says through his teeth, hoping the Despotes falls for his lie. He doesn’t.  
  
“They all look connected one to another, like milestones,” he muses. Or like constellations. They are connected, of this Baekhyun is sure. They’re all connected through a common link. The Black. Dakrya’s _koal_ mine.  
  
The Black is a mine Baekhyun knows so well. He’s walked through its empty galleries until he’s found the end of it. The beginning of it. The first, the original city of Dakrya, a city of secrets and lurking dangers. Baekhyun wanted to explore it, to take his time to unveil all its secrets one by one, but Chanyeol told him to never go back to that city again and Baekhyun never did.  
  
“You know something about these ruins, don’t you, Baekhyun?”  
  
“No, sir.”  
  
Kyungsoo smiles. Sometimes he’s the Despotes, the man who lives above everyone in Dakrya, the man who despises Harbingers and the man who took Chanyeol away from Baekhyun. And sometimes he’s Kyungsoo, who listens to Baekhyun’s stories about the maze for hours and allows Baekhyun to talk back to him without threatening to kill him.  
  
“Did you know that your eyes shine brighter when you’re not telling the truth? It’s like all the light starts swirling in your pupils.” Baekhyun closes his eyes, shuts them tightly. He can hear Kyungsoo’s chuckle. “That also happens when you’re angry, but it’s different. When you’re angry, it’s like all the silver gets muddy, dirty, and a little messy. But when you lie, the truth sparkles through your eyes, as if it wants to come out. As if it wants to be freed. Sometimes it’s beautiful. Sometimes it’s just annoying.”  
  
“Some secrets are not meant to be shared.”  
  
“And some secrets are not meant to be kept. Which one is it, Baekhyun?”  
  
Baekhyun doesn’t know why it’s so important to Kyungsoo, and he really doesn’t care. The only thing he cares about…  
  
“Let me meet Chanyeol.”  
  
Kyungsoo’s hand sneaks between them, grabbing Baekhyun’s wrist so tight it hurts.  
  
“You’re not supposed to talk about him. I thought we had a deal.”  
  
Baekhyun knows all the guards who knew about Chanyeol’s existence are dead. All except one, Captain Oh. He also knows Captain Oh has asked the Despotes to kill Baekhyun too, because keeping him alive it’s too dangerous. Chanyeol’s existence is dangerous. If the Hiereus of the Temple knew about the existence of a demon, if he knew that the Despotes had been hiding him... Baekhyun is not sure Kyungsoo’s reign over Dakrya would be able to continue. The people of Dakrya hate demons and fear is a powerful weapon.  
  
“Let’s make a new deal,” he says. “You’ve already made a deal with Chanyeol, so now make a deal with me too.”  
  
“What kind of deal?”  
  
“Tell me where he is, let me meet him. And I’ll tell you everything you want to know.”  
  
“I thought you were already telling me everything.” Kyungsoo frowns and Baekhyun shrugs.  
  
“You’re not my master, you can’t demand the truth for me. But if you give me the only thing I want, I will tell you everything you need to know.”  
  
Kyungsoo doesn’t even think about it. His hold on Baekhyun’s wrist tightens to the point of hurting.  
  
“Everything?”  
  
Baekhyun looks at him, and the truth shines bright in his eyes.  
  
“Everything.”  
  


~

  
  
  
  


**15**

  
  
The house of Baekhyun’s childhood is still where it’s always been since Baekhyun has memory. A hole in the stone and a thick cloth that worked as a door. Only two rooms inside. Before his father died, Baekhyun and his brother slept in the kitchen, at the faint light of shards of magic fire smaller than their tiny children hands, while their parents slept on the other room.  
  
Inside, like outside, nothing has changed. The rope Baekhyun used to play with the other children of the neighborhood when they went to explore the dead mines is still lying on the floor, where Baekhyun left it when the Weepers swept the curtain aside and invaded his home for the second time.  
  
Baekhyun was fourteen years old when he was chosen to be a Harbinger, like his brother before him. The day his voice first broke, the day his eyes glowed silver, a Weeper came to take him to the Temple. The Byun widow didn’t even try to hide him, like she had done with his brother. She let him go without a smile or a last wave.  
  
Of his mother, Baekhyun remembers the long, wavy hair. The color was nothing special, but no many women could afford to it that long. She used to put oil on her hair to make it shine, turning the common brown into a deep, luscious bister that made men turn at her passage. The smell lingered on her neck and behind her ears, suddenly stronger when Baekhyun leaned closer to kiss her cheek. Her fingertips smelled of the spices she used to put into the cabbage soup. Her clothes smelled like purple smoke. Of his brother, Baekhyun remembers the way he used to pick him up and piggyback him around the neighborhood. Of his father, Baekhyun remembers nothing, for he died in the mines during a mission before Baekhyun was even born.  
  
Baekhyun doesn’t know where his mother is or what is she doing now. After he was appointed Harbinger, he tried going back to the house of his childhood, in the slums of Dakrya, near the Circle of the Guards, but his mother wasn’t there anymore. Back then, a tiny, whiny part of Baekhyun still dared to hope. He came back many times, defying the scared glares of his former neighbors, people who had once given him food, taken him in their homes, people with whom he has played. Every time he swept the curtain to peek inside the tiny house, he prayed that she would be there, waiting for him.  
  
Slowly, with time, something in him gave up. She probably found another man and remarried. Maybe she has other children, children who wouldn’t grow up to be Harbingers, with fair hair and dark eyes. Maybe she cradled them to her chest the way she used to do for Baekhyun, back when he was tiny enough to fit in her arms, her baby. Baekhyun hoped she was living a comfortable life, wherever she was. He hoped she was not hungry, or cold, like most the people living in Dakrya are. Sometimes, he hoped she missed him. Sometimes, he hoped she didn’t.  
  
With time, he forgot her face, her smile, her voice. Now he only remembers details. The little mole at the corner of her lips, so similar to his own. The nails of her left hand, which she broke twenty years ago, during the great cave-in, as she tried to dig through the stone in the foolish hope to reach her trapped husband. Baekhyun remembers the corner of her lips and a confused impression of her figure standing at the door, calling him for dinner. Her long wavy hair. A hum, an impression of her singing lullabies.  
  
He pulls the curtain back and lets it fall over the empty, abandoned house. The street too is empty and abandoned. The neighborhood died slowly, together with the mines.  
  
Baekhyun finds the same paths he explored as a children, the same abandoned wells. He steps into one, following the walls with his hands as darkness grow thicker.  
  
He probably should’ve thought of bringing a magic fire, but he didn’t. As a Harbinger, he’s too used to having the phoi at his beck and call, but this is not the maze. This is Dakrya, still.  
  
_How to do this?_ he thinks. It’s true that there must be a connection between this dead vein and the rest of the Black, but he doesn’t know how much time it will take to find it, nor where it would take him.  
  
For now, he takes a few, tentative steps in the darkness. It’s not the maze but it’s a bit like the maze, he thinks, cold and dark and lonely, but safe. Relatively safe, at least. Baekhyun follows the gallery until it splits, and then turns left, delving further into the darkness.  
He walks for what feels like hours, darkness dilating the time until one minute feels like an eternity and an eternity feels like one minute. That’s when it happens, unexpectedly. A little phos flies past him, nudging his hand, a little brush of light, not hot, nor cold.  
  
Baekhyun’s eyes widen and he can feel his power activate, summoning the phos towards his hand. He cradles it in his palm, the lightest, faintest star. “What are you doing here?”  
  
The speck of light trembles quietly and then disappears, under Baekhyun’s stupefied eyes.  
  
“Wait, wait little one!”  
  
It appears again a little further, as if summoned by Baekhyun’s voice, and it’s impossible, a phos shouldn’t be here, not inside the barrier. The boy stops, wondering if he hasn’t trespassed and left the city without realizing.  
  
“How did you get past the barrier?” he asks. “What is going on here?”  
  
The phos blinks and disappears again, reappearing a little further down the gallery. It quivers, floating up and down, encouraging Baekhyun to follow him.  
  
“I have no time to play hide-and-seek with you, you know?”  
  
His mind reels, wondering how is this possible. The ground shakes again, another explosion somewhere in the Agorà. The barrier, thinks Baekhyun, the barrier must be weaker than ever. If the Hiereus is focusing all his efforts on winning this battle, doesn’t it mean that he’s leaving the city unprotected? He looks at the abyss and he hopes the abyss is not looking back. If a Fury managed to enter in the city, everyone would die.  
  
The phos flies around his head, luring him in.  
  
Baekhyun knows what to do now. He kneels on the ground, forehead touching the naked stone.  
  
“Please, please, please. Take me to Chanyeol.”  
  
The phos glitters, and then runs away. Baekhyun follows its tiny light in the tunnels of the Black.  
  


~

  
  
  
  


**16**

  
  
Chanyeol hears him coming.  
  
“Go away Kyungsoo. I don’t want to talk to you, not today.”  
  
Was his voice always this tired? Baekhyun hesitates before the last turn. The gallery seems to expand in front of him, the distance left between him and Chanyeol stretching into immensity, a negative space Baekhyun doesn’t know how to cross.  
  
Phoi swirl around his fingers, trying to lead him forward. What are you scared of, they seem to ask. Didn’t you just sell your deepest secrets to Kyungsoo, just for a chance to see Chanyeol? Just for _this_ chance to see Chanyeol?  
  
“But what if he hates me?” he murmurs, making the phoi shake in disbelief. “He traded his secrets for my life, wouldn’t he be angry that I’m wasting his sacrifice? What if he was tired of me all along, what if-”  
  
“You either come in or you leave, Kyungsoo. But I’d rather prefer if you simply left, to be honest.”  
  
Baekhyun lingers at the last steps of the long staircase that led him to Chanyeol’s new prison. The Daimon’s Pit, Kyungsoo said. It is really a pit, a hole, a forgotten well of a forgotten mine.  
  
You either come in, or you leave, Chanyeol said, and Baekhyun wants to leave. But, in the end, does it matter, _does it really matter_ , if Chanyeol doesn’t want to talk to Baekhyun? Does it matter that he made his own sacrifices to protect Baekhyun? Baekhyun never asked him. Baekhyun never wanted him to give up something for him. Baekhyun just wanted Chanyeol to tell him a story.  
  
“Just be with me the time of a song, and then I’ll leave,” he says, as he finally steps into the light of the magic fires hanging from the walls of the cave.  
  
Chanyeol turns so quickly Baekhyun doesn’t have the time to breathe, to prepare himself, to think about what stupid, silly starstruck face he’s making. Chanyeol turns and his eyes find Baekhyun’s, and just like that warmth explodes in Baekhyun’s chest, in his face, neck and collarbones, the tips of his ears turning pink in the darkness. Chanyeol looks beautiful.  
  
“Baekhyun, what are you doing here?”  
  
“I told you, I came for a story.”  
  
“No, what are you really doing here? The Despotes will kill you if he finds you here.”  
  
“The Despotes will not do such a thing, he was the one who sent me here.”  
  
“Why?” asks Chanyeol, and his brow furrows. He frowns, looking at Baekhyun like he doesn’t understand.  
  
“Why what?”  
  
“Why did you come to find me again? I did everything I could to keep you safe.” He looks at Baekhyun’s eyes, and maybe there’s regret in his eyes, and confusion, and he’s beautiful and Baekhyun has never been more in love.  
  
This is what Yoona talked about, without even knowing it, this feeling of helplessness, this feeling of imperfection, this feeling of dread and doom and bliss at the same time, like a storm. Baekhyun doesn’t fear storms he’s never seen. He fears loneliness and cold and dying without a purpose. He fears oblivion. He fears he’ll die without seeing Chanyeol ever again.  
  
“What did you give Kyungsoo to make you come down here?” asks Chanyeol, and he looks angry. Baekhyun will take this anger too, he can take everything Chanyeol gives him. And he can give back, he will give back, because he has so much to give and Chanyeol has always been the only one who could take it. Baekhyun, too, is angry.  
  
“What did you give Kyungsoo to save my life this time? What did you give his father to save me when we met?”  
  
“So Kyungsoo told you.” Chanyeol snorts, frustrated. “It doesn’t work like this, you can’t just come here and...” He stops, fists tight at his side, eyes burning holes in Baekhyun’s face, and Baekhyun didn’t even realize Chanyeol was circling around him, he didn’t hear the rattle of the silver chains, Chanyeol’s soft steps around the circular room, he didn’t see or hear or feel anything but Chanyeol. When he notices, it’s too late. Chanyeol is too close, his chains lying on the floor around the two of them, and his fingers are warm on Baekhyun’s hand. Baekhyun feels like he’s burning alive.  
  
Chanyeol circles his wrists like he would hold a little bird before letting it fly away, even though Baekhyun has nowhere to fly.  
  
“Baekhyun, I’m serious. What did Kyungsoo ask of you in exchange for this?” asks Chanyeol again, and his eyes harden when Baekhyun refuses to answer, the affection turning into anger like molten lava turning into black stone.  
  
“Don’t look at me like that,” Baekhyun says, countering Chanyeol’s frown with one of his own. “I have no intention to tell you.”  
  
“Baekhyun…”  
  
“You can keep your secrets and I’ll keep mine, isn’t that how it works now between us?”  
  
To think that only a few years ago Baekhyun would’ve kissed the ground where Chanyeol walked, he would’ve fallen on his knees and begged Chanyeol to forgive him at the first sign of annoyance. Now, when Chanyeol purses his lips in an annoyed grimace at Baekhyun’s words, all Baekhyun can feel is a petty, childish feeling of triumph. That, and anger flowing in his veins, like poison, slowly corroding him.  
  
“What I do with my life is not your business, Baekhyun,” says Chanyeol, and he’s so dumb, sometimes he’s so dumb, saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, and Baekhyun feels something scratch at walls inside his chest, like a yearning, for what he doesn’t know. To fight maybe, to hurt Chanyeol, to show him that two can play this game.  
  
“Then when what I do with mine is not your business either,” he whispers back, pushing Chanyeol’s hands away because he doesn’t want to be touched (he doesn’t want to be coddled), he wants Chanyeol to take him seriously and sometimes he doesn’t know how.  
  
Chanyeol scoffs and crosses his arms, looking like one of the statues of the gods inside the Temple of the Klæin, tall and imposing. He doesn’t let go of Baekhyun and he’s strong, he’s cutting off the blood in his arm, but Baekhyun is too prideful to tell him he’s hurting him.  
  
“It is my business, since I fucking saved you,” says Chanyeol, the feelings in his eyes hardening like tempered steel, and Baekhyun’s eyes flash silver in pure, undiluted rage.  
  
“No one asked you,” he spits out, struggling against Chanyeol’s hold, and he can immediately pinpoint the moment Chanyeol’s brain register his words because he stops holding Baekhyun down, he lets him go as their playful banter turning into something more heated, something wild and out of control and mean, something for which they both need to put some distance between them.  
  
“No one asked me? Aren’t you an ungrateful, impudent little brat?”  
  
“At least I’m not a liar,” he whispers. He almost regrets it, when he sees Chanyeol’s lips disappear into a thin line. He squares his shoulders and pushes out his chest, like a wild animal ready to pounce, and Baekhyun almost takes a step back. Almost. If he can’t face Chanyeol now, how can he hope to be his equal? Baekhyun trembles under Chanyeol’s gaze. He doesn’t move.  
  
“I don’t owe you any truth, Baekhyun, I never did. But you, you owe me your life. Twice.”  
  
“And here I thought you saved me because we were friends, but it looks like I was just deluding myself.” He’s screaming now, letting everything loose. All the anger he had bottled, all the feelings that festered inside him in the long months Chanyeol was locked away, out of his reach, Kyungsoo’s words playing and replaying inside his mind. He spits them back at Chanyeol, because it’s unfair, because Baekhyun had really thought they were friends – he had really wanted them to be friends. “Was I just a pity case for you? Oh, look, a poor kid from the Netherworld, let’s save him because he’s so pitiful and I’m so magnanimous and great and…”  
  
He has to stop, to regain his breath, but he doesn’t dare to look at Chanyeol. He looks at the ground instead, at his own hands, coming in and out of focus. He hopes he’s not crying.  
  
He can feel his own anger deflate, Chanyeol’s own simmering down and dying as well. In the half-light of the room, only their harsh breaths remain.  
  
“That’s not why I did it, Baekhyun. Did it pass through your head that maybe, that maybe I did what I did because I care about you? Why are we fighting about this?”  
  
“Because I’m not a child, Chanyeol. You still treat me like one, but I stopped being a child the day you met me, when my only friend sacrificed her life just to save mine. I still have nightmares about her death, you know? And then not only I find out you did the same, but you did it twice, how do you think I felt? Call me ungrateful, but I don’t want you to protect me, I never wanted you to sacrifice anything for me… All I wanted was...”  
  
Chanyeol looks at him like he’s seeing him for the first time. Baekhyun wants nothing more than for him to get it, to realize how much he’s grown up. He wants to be seen as an equal. But the gap between them seems to grow wide and wider every day. No matter how farther Baekhyun walks to get a good running start, Chanyeol is always – and always will be – in front of him, unreachable.  
  
“What am I to you?” he asks, the same thing Kyungsoo had asked. He wants Chanyeol to break his heart, to shatter his ridiculous hopes in tiny little pieces, forcing Baekhyun to acknowledge the truth, so he can stop deluding himself. It’s unfair, for him, to want Chanyeol to reject him when he hasn’t even found the courage to confess – he’s only barely found the guts to talk back to Chanyeol today for the first time in his life, how brave of him.  
  
Chanyeol sighs, softly. He looks so tired and disheartened that Baekhyun has to close his eyes because he doesn’t want to look at Chanyeol’s face while he rejects him. But Chanyeol, who sometimes has all the right answers, takes his face between his hands and whispers, softer, “No, don’t close your eyes.”  
  
“Why?” asks Baekhyun.  
  
“If this is the only time he allowed you to come here, I want to look at your eyes. They’re very pretty. And I missed them. I missed you,” he whispers, a hushed confession.  
  
Baekhyun missed Chanyeol too. He tells him so and Chanyeol scoffs, as if he cannot believe that, and Baekhyun has not the heart to tell him how much he really missed him, how many times he came close to death. How many times he watched a Fury in the eyes and told it to come and take him. He wants Chanyeol to understand, how little and pathetic and useless Baekhyun is compared to him, but at the same time he’s ashamed, deep down in his heart, because Chanyeol is strong, Chanyeol is real, Chanyeol is vivid. Chanyeol doesn’t need Baekhyun to feel complete, but Baekhyun feels like he’ll never be complete without Chanyeol.  
  
He closes his eyes, again, scared of what they could reveal.  
  
“Don’t be mad at me,” he whispers. “I only wanted to see you. I missed you so much.”  
  
_I know I’m not the one thing you’re looking for, but you are mine. You’re the thing I’m always looking for. Wherever I go, whatever I do. I feel like I’ve waited for you my entire life._  
  
Chanyeol’s fingers find his face, linger on his lips. They part at his touch and Baekhyun can feel Chanyeol’s breath itch. It burns something in Baekhyun’s gut, lower than his chest, deep in his core, something clenches and unclenches and he sighs and Chanyeol groans and pulls him close.  
  
“Just come here, stupid. I could never be mad at you,” he says, tugging Baekhyun in his arms, and Baekhyun melts against him. He splays his hands on Chanyeol’s shoulders and hugs back, holds tight like he never wants to let go. In his ears, Chanyeol’s voice whispers words he would never dare to hope for in his dreams. “I missed you too, so much, Baekhyun. So, so much.”  
  
Chanyeol lets him go and stares at him like he’s looking for something. He turns Baekhyun’s face to the side, sweeps the hair away from his forehead. The fingers of his other hand curl around Baekhyun’s hip. He bites his bottom lip as he frowns.  
  
“How long has it been?” he asks. “You look so different.”  
  
And Baekhyun _is_ different. Broader, a little bit taller, but he also feels too big for his skin, almost cramped in this new body. He used to be a tiny child, brave and fearless, and then he turned into a nervous teen-ager, all skin-and-bones and angry and scared but too startled by everything to stand up for himself. But now there’s a different tightness to his muscles, to his jaw, to his eyes, a confidence that wasn’t there before. Somehow, amidst the countless turns and twists of the maze, or under the whip of the Hiereus in in the dungeons of the Temple of the Klæin, or even kneeling in front of the Despotes, in his black, tall tower, Baekhyun just stopped caring. What is there to fear, after all? What could be worse than this life? What does he have to lose?  
  
People who used to stare maliciously at him, spitting at his feet in the street, now just give him a wide berth when he glares at them, slivers of silver blinking in his dark eyes. They are used to bully children, not angry young men, their hands balled up into fists, ready to fight back. Not many Harbingers get to live to see their nineteenth year, after all, but Baekhyun did and he found out it’s exhilarating, utterly empowering, to be perceived as somewhat dangerous, to add fear on top of hatred. It doesn’t make things less lonely, but it gives sadness an aftertaste of triumph.  
  
Maybe that’s why he finally found the courage to talk back to Chanyeol, as an equal, not as a little boy Chanyeol needs to protect.  
  
“It’s been…” he counts quickly. “More than one year since the last time I saw you. The Weepers at the temple have been waiting for me to die for a while.”  
  
He doesn’t say he almost did die. Many times. But from the look of fury in Chanyeol’s eyes the boy knows anyway.  
  
“Don’t die, Baekhyun. You can’t die. Remember what I’ve promised you? If you don’t die, I’ll take you to the surface. So don’t die. Don’t you ever die, brat.”  
  
Baekhyun basks in Chanyeol’s warmth. He smiles.  
  
“Now, I can’t stay long. I think you owe me a song?”  
  
“Oh, I’m sorry.” Chanyeol shows him his empty hands. “I lost my lyre.”  
  
Baekhyun laughs, for the first time in months, as he takes Chanyeol’s lyre out of his bag.  
  
“A problem I can easily solve for you.”  
  


~

  
  
  
  


**44**

  
  
Droplets of water trickle like tears down the walls of the Temple of the Klæin, on stones older than time, smoothened by the hands of countless centuries. The floor is damp and, on the cracks veining the grey marble white and black, water has collected, shallow puddles that shatter in a wet splash when Baekhyun’s feet step on them.  
  
It’s the only sign of life in the dungeons, the only sound breaking the eerie silence of the temple. Many levels above Baekhyun’s head, the Agorà is still shaking. The truce between the two factions Sehun promised him only lasted a couple of hours, barely enough for Baekhyun to cross the Black and reemerge in a tunnel directly connected with the dungeons of the temple. If he looks closely, he can see the puddles of water nestled on the ground tremble in concentric circles, but it’s the only sign that, somewhere out there, a battle is still being fought.  
  
The rock the temple was built upon is too old to shake. Too old, too strong, too drenched in magic – all the magic the Weepers of the Klæin have collected in the last two centuries, all infused here, in the grain of marble, in these walls smoother and whiter than porcelain, in these dark arabesques.  
  
The phoi have disappeared, again, and Baekhyun doesn’t expect them to come back. Not here, not this close to the source of the barrier. The Weepers would crush the little lights with their magic if they could see them and that would break Baekhyun’s heart. Still, the power of the Temple is weakening. There are cracks in the barriers, fissures in the layer of sanity that has protected the city from the madness of the maze for years. This war has been taking its toll on everyone, even the undefeatable, unshakable Hiereus of the Weepers of the Klæin, First Priest of the Temple of Dakrya.  
  
Wet footsteps announce the arrival of someone else and Baekhyun hides behind a big column, a merging of stalactites and stalagmites, while six Weepers pass by, only a few steps from him. They’re wearing masks carved from iron, not bones like the higher priests of temple. The dark, rusty iron draped on their faces makes them gives them a wild, grotesque look, but Baekhyun is not a child who can be scared by a mask. Not anymore.  
  
He waits for them to pass and counts the time between the first and the second round of guards. He waits to make sure there’s not a third group, and then he has to wait until the first two groups have passed again. Only then, he moves.  
  
He doesn’t need a map. He already knows where they’re keeping Chanyeol. Baekhyun is quite comfortable with the dungeons of the temple, where he was secluded whenever he misbehaved during his days as a _pais_ , which was almost every day. The Hiereus said it was part of his training, to help him familiarize with darkness and silence, but Baekhyun couldn’t miss the satisfied undertone of his voice whenever he opened the door of the cells to find Baekhyun in tears, curled on himself at the center of the room.  
  
He climbs down the stairs, sneaking between statues of monsters and deities like a small mouse. The effigy of the Klæin is everywhere, carved on the walls, on the floor, on the ceiling, like an obsession, the helmet marrying every available surface, snakes curling at his feet, the scepter and the cup in his hands.  
  
The stone carries the sound of voices, channeled and distorted in their own echo, and finally Baekhyun emerges on top of a cave bigger than the entire temple that lies only a few level above it, occupying a wide portion of hollow, empty space situated exactly under the Agorà. There, from everyone’s eyes, the Weepers have secretly built another temple, a secret temple, bigger than the public one in Agorà, with titanic columns, full-scale blocks, strips and friezes and, lying in the middle, the biggest, heaviest magic fire Baekhyun has ever seen, not red, nor blue, but silver, the color of the Temple. It’s the source of the power of the Weepers and only the Hiereus is allowed to kindle it, during the most secret rites of the Klæin, the ones even Baekhyun, _especially Baekhyun_ , was never allowed to attend.  
  
Kyungsoo knows of the existence of this second temple – of course Baekhyun told him – but attacking it would be a suicide. If something happened to this cave, the Beacon, the public temple, the marketplace… The entire Agorà would crumple over it, and the entire city would follow, sucked in by their falling ruins.  
  
The litany coming from the _naos_ of the Temple grows stronger, different voices merging into a single one. Baekhyun doesn’t understand what they’re saying, but he recognizes the cadenza of the Hiereus above all the others, his voice stronger and heavier, towering on top of the melody, leading the other Weepers in their chant.  
  
Baekhyun squats down and crawls to the edge of the stairs. The Weepers, the ones who aren’t outside fighting the men of the Despotes, at least, kneel all around the Hiereus, in circle, intonating a word, a prayer maybe, or a spell. Baekhyun recognizes the mask of the Deacon, of the Archivist, of all the higher priests of the temple. Their voices curl around the tall columns and spiral upwards, echoing around the honed walls of the cave in a low vibration that turns into a syncopated drumming, dum, dum, _dum_ , their tone dropping while the volume of the chant rises in a crescendo that pounds inside Baekhyun’s head, overwhelming.  
  
He stops at the edge of that cliff, realizing that going forwards would mean to give up his position. From his elevated hiding spot, he can count at least sixty people in the _naos_ of the temple. Only the face of the Hiereus is covered by silver, everyone else wears masks carved in the hollow dusks of animals, oxen, horses and pigs, and even the bones of dead Furies some Harbingers like to take home with them.  
  
Baekhyun doesn’t understand magic, but he can feel it resonate within his soul, his eyes channeling the power, his chest welcoming it like a violin’s sounding boards. The Hiereus raises both his hands to the globe of magic fire, where the magic they’ve been collecting shines an eerie light, and the chanting reaches its climax. The Weepers hold the last, dramatic note, the entire cave resounding with it, then every sound dies all of a sudden.  
  
Baekhyun is still busy planning the best way to circle around the Temple to sneak down in the dungeons without any of the guards stopping him, when the Hiereus calls the guards.  
  
“Bring forth the Daimon,” he says, and that’s it, and Baekhyun freezes, heart withering with dread. He had hoped to tiptoe around the guards and slip Chanyeol out while everyone was busy with the ritual.  
  
Chanyeol towers over the guards, even shackled and chained. Even when the Hiereus pulls on the silver string and makes the boy stumble on his knees, Chanyeol still looks taller than everyone else in the room. He looks even more painfully real, a boy of hellfire, sword and shield in a hall full of ghosts, his presence so painfully, unmistakably foreign Baekhyun can only wonder whether he too looks so tiny and pale next to Chanyeol, like they belong to two different, irreconcilable words.  
  
He’s not close enough to hear what the Hiereus is saying, but he sees him spitting in front of Chanyeol. Chanyeol laughs, long and loud and careless, and Baekhyun has to put his hand in his mouth, teeth digging in the tender, white skin of his wrist to muffle the shout he almost lets out when the guards hit Chanyeol.  
  
He doesn’t budge, almost as if he hasn’t even felt the blow, and so they hit him again. Baekhyun closes his eyes and tries to remember that they can’t kill Chanyeol, they can’t hurt Chanyeol, they can do nothing to Chanyeol. But the sound of the metal falling on the soft flesh haunts his memories, so clear that he can almost feel it on his own skin. How many times he’s been on the receiving end of a beating? How many times Chanyeol collected him in his arms and looked like he was ready to burn the world just for Baekhyun? Has it always been as unbearable for him as it is now for Baekhyun?  
  
The Hiereus talks and Chanyeol laughs as he answers. Baekhyun doesn’t know what they’re saying. He’s too far away to hear it. So he comes closer, closer and closer, when everyone’s attention is on the boy sitting strong and proud in the middle of the platform.  
Slowly, the words of the Hiereus take form in his mind.  
  
“You think you can come here, breaking our law, destroying the rightful order?”  
  
Chanyeol stops smiling, his eyes narrowing, his face turning sharp, like a predator, like a demon of the old stories. “You know nothing about the rightful order of this place.”  
  
The Hiereus laughs. “I know that your place is not here. And I know you will never find the person you’re looking for. No one can leave the Netherworld once they’ve been admitted here. Whoever they are, their soul belongs to this world now.”  
  
“Their soul belongs to me, and me only,” says Chanyeol, every trace of laughter gone. “And I won’t leave without them.”  
  
“You won’t leave, with or without them. We’ll win this war, _Daimon_ , foul beast. We will take the power from the Despotes, from that man who thinks he is above the gods, and we will rebuild this city elsewhere, like we’ve always done every time someone has tried to rebel against the power of the Unseen. And you will stay here, chained, for the rest of the eternity. We cannot kill you, we cannot make you suffer, but I will make an example out of you just like I did with that Harbinger of yours.”  
  
Baekhyun can’t see Chanyeol pale, but he can see the sudden tension in his shoulders, at the back of his neck, in the way his fingers clutch at the fabric of his vest.  
  
“What did you do to him?”  
  
“Take him away!”  
  
“Wait!”  
  
This time, Baekhyun doesn’t close his eyes when the guard hits Chanyeol. He’s up to his feet before he can remind himself how stupid what is going to do is, and taking a few steps back to get a running start, so he can jump in the middle of the assembly and save Chanyeol with his own, bare hands, or die trying.  
  
Before he can jump, someone stops him. A hand on his shoulders, pulling him back behind the column, another on his mouth, to stop him from screaming. Baekhyun panics, wondering who was so swift to be able to sneak up on him, but that’s when he recognizes the touch. A gentle touch, the touch of someone who would never hurt him.  
  
“Ten,” he murmurs, against the boy’s fingers.  
  
Ten nods and puts a finger in front of his mouth, telling him to shut up.  
  
“Come on,” he says, “follow me.”  
  
Baekhyun shakes his head. He’s not leaving without Chanyeol.  
  
“You won’t be able to save him now, let’s think of a plan and come back later,” begs Ten. “Trust me, Baekhyun. We can save him.”  
  
Ten’s eyes are limpid and clear. He came back, for Baekhyun. He came back when he could have stayed with Youngho. What a stupid, stupid kid. Baekhyun really hopes he doesn’t die here.  
  
He lets Ten drag him away, his eyes still fixed on the corridor where Chanyeol disappeared.  
  
_So close, so close. Wait for me, just a little more. A little more._  
  


~

  
  
  
  


**17**

  
  
Dakrya is a city of miners, a city of mines. But, without its mines, Dakrya has nothing. Dakrya is nothing.  
  
Baekhyun looks at Kyungsoo, at the plans carefully laid out in front of them. As his price for every meeting with Chanyeol, Kyungsoo has asked Baekhyun to explore the maze, to map it, to find where it starts and where it ends.  
  
_What do you want?_ wonders Baekhyun, every time he finds the Despotes engrossed in the maps Baekhyun took back, maps of places the Despotes will never be able to visit. Precluded, prohibited, like everything that stands outside the maze.  
  
But Do Kyungsoo is stubborn and he thinks he knows better. This will be his great downfall, his greatest defeat. Maybe, in the future, Kyungsoo will fall to his knees wondering what happened, what led them to such a hopeless situation, but right now he only looks at Baekhyun like he owns him – and he does, a little, he owns both Baekhyun _and_ Chanyeol, assuming that someone like Chanyeol would ever let himself be owned.  
  
“Tell me again about these old ruins you found.”  
  
“What use would they have for you? You will not be able to go there anyway. That place is cursed, swarming with Furies. No one can go there and survive.”  
  
“You did.”  
  
Baekhyun did, once. And Chanyeol told him to never do it again. The Despotes looks at him, as if gauging how much can Baekhyun really do, how much can Baekhyun really know. He doesn’t trust him, Baekhyun knows it. In this game of power, this push-and-pull challenge between the Despotes and the Temple, Baekhyun is the odd pawn, the one that could tick the balance of power towards one or the other side. The Despotes is the knight, the Temple is the queen, the army of Dakrya is the horse and the people of the city are the tower. They’re all playing a game, but there’s only one set of players, only one side of this chessboard, because they’re playing a game against themselves, within themselves.  
  
The Despotes looks down, at his own personal board. A model of the city, of its galleries, of its dying mines. A long time ago, Dakrya was the greatest Buried City of the Alliance. Now it’s just an old, dusty place, overcrowded and dirty, a messy kaleidoscope of magic fires, hunger, fine dust and the vestiges of a long gone past.  
  
“I want to move the city again.”  
  
How, Baekhyun wanted to ask. _How in the world can you think these people, our people, would willingly walk into the maze, even to save their own lives? How would you keep them safe? How crazy are you, Do Kyungsoo?_  
  
“The Temple will try to stop you,” he says only, eyes casted low, staring at the miniature replica of streets he knows well enough he can even spot the slightest inaccuracies in the model. Infinitesimal differences – one tunnel is longer, another shorter, a third one isn’t in the model at all – but they’re enough to draw a line between life and death in Baekhyun’s job.  
  
“You said it yourself, it has already been done in the past. Our people are dying, Baekhyun. Dakrya is dying. We dug all the mines too deep and we’re scratching at our own leftovers. Give it a few years. We’re already running out of materials to make magic fires. And without magic fires, we can’t grow food. _We_ are dying, Baekhyun. We must move.”  
  
It’s the dream of a madman, and yet Baekhyun can’t help but to be lured to it, like a foolish moth. The Despotes of Dakrya has this kind of effect on people. They love him and they would follow him whatever he decides, Baekhyun knows it well. But the Temple will never ever allow it.  
  
“It has been done in the past, yes, but how will you convince the Council? The Temple burned all the archives. There is no proof. You only have my word, and my word is not worth anything for the people of Dakrya, nor for the Temple. You’ll get me killed for nothing.”  
  
“I won’t get you killed, Baekhyun. I need you alive, or Chanyeol will never lead my people there, don’t you think?” His eyes meet Baekhyun’s, as if to calculate his worth again. There’s nothing to calculate. Baekhyun is worthless.  
  
“He won’t do it, you know him. He wouldn’t help you, not even for me.”  
  
“I don’t really know, Baekhyun. He really seems to care about you. And you seem to care about him.”  
  
And there it is, the attack Baekhyun was waiting for. If this is a game of chess, if Baekhyun is the pawn that alone can decide the game, Chanyeol can only be the king.  
  
“So tell me, Baekhyun, how much do you want to see Chanyeol?”  
  
Checkmate.  
  
“I want you to find me a way to beat the Hiereus, to get a upper hand over the Temple. I want the power to save this city without getting caught in stupid, useless politic games.”  
  
Baekhyun snorts. “You want many things, Do Kyungsoo.”  
  
“You want only one thing, though. And I will give it to you. You will be able to visit Chanyeol whenever you want, you just have to find something for me. Isn’t it a good deal?”  
  
It’s a terrible deal. The more Baekhyun ventures into the darkness, the more dangerous it’ll become. He’s already twenty years old, an age at which most other Harbingers are already dead. If he accepts, it’s more likely that he will die soon, alone and abandoned in the tunnels. But if he accepts…  
  
“What do you want me to find?” he asks.  
  
“A secret. A secret my father knew, but never told me or any of my brothers. He thought we weren’t ready and he died before any of us could prove him wrong. But I am ready, Baekhyun, and I need to know. As the Despotes of Dakrya.”  
  
“What kind of secret?”  
  
“The only secret worth knowing. I want you to go back to the first ruins of Oldest-Dakrya and find the first book of the Klæin, the original Klæin.”  
  
Baekhyun blinks, confused. “I thought the only copy was here, in Dakrya?”  
  
“Oh no, Baekhyun, that’s not the first book, not the original book. Not a single one of the books of the Klæin is original, they were all added later. What I’m asking you to find is the first, the only book that the Unseen gave us when we were thrown in the Netherworld. Everything I need to know is there.”  
  
A smarter Harbinger would’ve refused, but Baekhyun is not smart. He’s many things. Defiant, stubborn, strong-willed and brave to the point of stupidity. And in love with Chanyeol.  
  
“Will you really let me see Chanyeol?”  
  
“I will do more than that. If you can bring me the secret of the maze, I will set you both free.”  
  
_If_ Baekhyun can bring him the secret of the maze. _If_ he can come back alive.  
  
“I accept.”  
  
Baekhyun doesn’t fear death. After all, what is death when you already know how you’ll die?  
  
(“How will you die?” asks Yerim, and Baekhyun ruffles her hair and pats her head.  
  
“It’s a secret.”  
  
She pouts. “Come on, can’t you tell me? I’ll be good, I promise! I won’t tell anyone!”  
  
“Ok,” he smiles, “but only because it’s you. I will die… in the coolest way there is to die, to be honest.”  
  
“Which is?”  
  
“By saving the one I love.”)  
  
  
  
  
  
_Then flash my message true  
Down yonder,—far away!—  
(The dew  
Lies sparkling on the hay.)  
  
Across what visions seek  
The Dear One slumbering still.  
(Quick, quick!  
The sun has reached the hill!)_  
  
Before your light quite fail  
— Paul Verlaine  
  
  
  



	5. iv. revelation | μήνυσις

_Death will come and will have your eyes—  
this death that accompanies us  
from morning till night, sleepless,  
deaf, like an old remorse  
or an absurd vice. Your eyes  
will be a useless word,  
a muted cry, a silence.  
That’s how you see them each morning  
when alone with yourself you lean over  
the mirror. O precious hope,  
that day we too shall know  
that you are life and you are nothingness._  
  
  
  
Demons have always been a part of Baekhyun’s life, even before he became a Harbinger, even before he read the Klæin. The existence of demons is not a secret in the Netherworld, or not one that needs to protected at every cost. They creep at the edge between what people know and what they’re supposed to not know, living in the folds of culture, in fairytales, in legends and in old, dramatic iconography. In the stories Baekhyun’s mom told at night in a feathery, sweet voice when she put him to sleep. In the stained glass vault of the naos of the temple, where Baekhyun was only allowed during the big celebration at the end of the year. In the dusty corners of children’s fantasy, all horns, claws and fangs. Red shimmering eyes.  
  
_A long time ago humans lived in the Overworld._  
  
_In a far, far away kingdom, there was happiness. There was warmth and life and love._  
  
_Once upon a time, the demons came and stole the world._  
  
A kid in Baekhyun’s neighborhood used to say demons didn’t exist, that they were just a bedtime story moms and Weepers told gullible children to scare them into behaving. _If you don’t behave, the demons will come and take you away,_ he’d singsong, in an exaggerated, high-pitched voice, to mock younger kids.  
  
He laughed of Baekhyun for believing in monsters at his age and it stung. It stung because it was true. Baekhyun used to think it was such a terrible thing, to be taken away. And away from what? From his family, from his friends, from his dirty hole of a city, his whole world? It was stupid, probably, but humans cling to what they know, to what they have. Baekhyun didn’t have much, but all that he had was his and he didn’t want to lose it, so yes, he was afraid of demons.  
  
“Are you afraid? Is little Byun Baekhyun afraid of the demons? Is that why you always go to the temple with your mama like a little kid?”  
  
He had punched that bony kid. On the face. Broke his nose before Baekbeom could stop him. It was a messy affair, bony legs and pointy elbows thrashing everywhere as all the children of the Circle rushed to take part in the fight. “I’m not afraid of demons,” he had shouted, as someone dragged him away from the center of the brawl. “I’m not afraid of anything.”  
  
“Oh, you are,” would say another Baekhyun – older, wiser, scared – a few years later. “You just don’t know it yet. There are things, out there, terrible things. And you’re afraid of them, because they’re fear itself. Enjoy your little safe world, while you can.”  
  
His little world made of games and hunger. One life, one future, a straight, short line.  
  
Baekhyun should’ve become a miner, like his father before him. He would’ve married a girl from his same neighborhood, maybe Somi, maybe Tzuyu. He could’ve fathered a couple of children, two boys, like his brother and he. He might’ve died from a lungs condition or a mining incident, before his thirty years.  
  
One life, one death. No fear. There’s nothing to fear when you already know your life and your death. Fear was something foreign, locked outside the walls, in the dreary meanders of the maze, down, down, down the rabbit hole, where Baekhyun couldn’t go. Where Baekhyun thought he would never go.  
  
“Do you miss that life?” asks Chanyeol, his hands on Baekhyun’s throat, on his face, covering his eyes, the only thing keeping him from fading away. Baekhyun tries to think about his past, how he felt, how he smiled, how he lived, but he finds nothing. It’s been too long. He can’t remember the faces of his friends or the games they played. The maze has shaped him anew. _Chanyeol_ has shaped him anew, molding him to fit against his own body.  
  
_I miss you,_ Baekhyun wants to answer. _I miss you every time we part, every time I leave, every time you have to stay. I think I’ve missed you for my whole life._  
  
He doesn’t say it, because he can’t. There are boundaries made to be tiptoed around with careful ease and fences made of thorns and barbed wire that only hurt you if you try to climb over them. And then there’s Chanyeol, who’s actually made of thorns and barbed wire, and Baekhyun has to bite his lips and remember that Chanyeol is not here for him. It doesn’t matter if he doesn’t remember what he came here for. Chanyeol is not here for him.  
  
It’s tragic, because Baekhyun is here for him. Only him. Only Chanyeol.  
  
“How can I miss something I’ve never known?” he asks instead, and Chanyeol kisses him, hot and warm, the chains tinkling like golden bells around them. This is what Baekhyun knows. Chanyeol’s fingers carded in his hair, Chanyeol’s tongue curling against his own, hot and wet over the roof of his mouth, stealing a moan from Baekhyun’s throat and silencing it with his lips, his nails dragging over the soft, sensitive patch of skin behind Baekhyun’s ears, where he tucks runaway strands of silver hair after he’s done stealing his breath away. The way he makes space for Baekhyun on his lap, to have him closer. Baekhyun’s heart sings like a caged nightingale when he thinks about the faceless lovers Chanyeol kissed in his demon world, people whose faces Chanyeol can’t remember. (But they exist and they’re not Baekhyun. And there’s a Chanyeol who belongs only to them, a Chanyeol Baekhyun can’t have.)  
  
“Do _you_ miss it?” he asks, when he resurfaces, because kissing Chanyeol is always a little like drowning. “Your old life?”  
  
Chanyeol’s lips linger, unsure, on the curve of Baekhyun’s temple, right under his hairline.  
“How can I miss something I can’t remember?” he answers, lightly, turning Baekhyun’s words against him.  
  
There are things Chanyeol knows. Mathematics. The temperature of boiling water. The jingle of a popular television show. Hoplite phalanx, whatever it is. Surprisingly, how to hold a shield and throw a spear, though he’s somewhat sure he was better with a sword. These are the things Chanyeol knows, the things he teaches Baekhyun after they’ve kissed for so long they can’t feel their lips and Baekhyun’s mind is reeling so much he can barely breathe, his chest heaving hard against Chanyeol’s.  
  
But there are also things Chanyeol will hide from Baekhyun. He murmurs them at night, while they sleep. (While _he_ sleeps. Baekhyun is too used to staying awake and listening, so he stays awake and listens to the sound of Chanyeol’s heartbeat, he watches the pale scars on his arms - he wonders when Chanyeol got them - slithering under the cuffs and the chains. Chanyeol calls for his father in his dreams and asks for forgiveness, for help, for enlightenment. Baekhyun doesn’t have the heart to tell him he won’t find any light down here.)  
  
There are things Chanyeol remembers. Flowers, birds and sunsets. The warmth of the fire.  
Baekhyun can only hope it’s not enough, even if it’s a malicious thought, even if it makes him a bad person. He doesn’t care if it’s selfish, he just hopes it’s never enough to make him miss home. He hopes Chanyeol never remembers what he came down here for. Because that’s the day he’ll leave.  
  
  


 

iv. revelation | μήνυσις

  
  
  


 

**18**

  
  
“So, exactly, when are you going to tell me what Kyungsoo asked of you?”  
  
Oh, Baekhyun will just pretend he didn’t hear that. He closes his eyes and he leans his head on Chanyeol’s arm, feigning sleep.  
  
“I know you’re awake.”  
  
When he doesn’t react, Chanyeol pinches him, hard. He raises his head with a yelp and a glare, but all his rage quickly melts when he catches a glimpse of Chanyeol hovering above him. He’s smiling, too close to not wreak havoc in Baekhyun’s chest, dark eyes, dark hair, dark smile with sharp white teeth and the tiniest hint of a dimple.  
  
His fond smile blends into a worried expression. “I’m not joking, Baekhyun, you have to tell me.”  
  
Baekhyun frowns. They’ve already had this argument countless times in the last six months, and most of those times it ended in a fight. He shakes his head and burrows his face in Chanyeol’s chest again. They already have so little time, he doesn’t really want to waste it fighting with Chanyeol.  
  
Chanyeol doesn’t seem to be of the same opinion, because he pinches Baekhyun’s arm again, harder, and Baekhyun bristles angrily.  
  
“Would you just stop?” he whines, pushing against Chanyeol in a half-assed, useless effort to get away. Chanyeol simply pins him down, caging him with his body. They stare at each other, both defiant, both too stubborn for their own good.  
  
“I thought we agreed on no more lies.”  
  
“It’s not a lie if I don’t say anything,” he says, leaning back until he’s lying on the cold ground, still caged under Chanyeol. He doesn’t miss the way Chanyeol’s eyes rake over his body, taking him in until he squirms, restless and a little embarrassed under the sudden examination. His cheeks burn, something that, as today, has only happened because of Chanyeol.  
  
“Why are you so stubborn?” mutters Chanyeol, looking away. Baekhyun chooses that moment to push him away and roll on his stomach, trying to hide the way his obvious blush.  
  
Like this, he can’t see the way Chanyeol’s expression softens and his fingers curl mid-air, a breath away from Baekhyun’s black vest, like he wants to pull him back again. He can’t see Chanyeol’s pursed lips but he can hear his sigh.  
  
“How long until you have to leave again?”  
  
Baekhyun knows he should just go. He should’ve been in Dakrya three hours ago to deliver a message from Aganaktein, but he’s still here, fighting with Chanyeol and wasting what little time they have together. What an idiot.  
  
“I don’t know. One hour, maybe two. The Hiereus will scold me again if I’m too late. He suspects something.”  
  
“Kyungsoo told me he’s been asking a lot of questions lately.”  
  
Baekhyun is suddenly and violently reminded of the dull pain in his back. Under the black fabric of his uniform, the red, angry streaks left by the whip of the Hiereus pulse. He grimaces, glad he’s not facing Chanyeol. The Hiereus has been asking a lot of questions, but he hasn’t been getting a lot of answers. Not from Baekhyun, anyway.  
  
“As long as no one answers,” he says, with a shrug. He rolls on his back and puts on a smile, extending a hand so Chanyeol can pull him up to a sitting position. He settles on leaning cross-legged against one of the walls. “ So,” he says, as he cleans little specks of dust from his sleeves. “Tell me about flowers.”  
  
“Again?” Chanyeol sniggers and his dark hair falls in front of his nose when he shakes his head. “I’m not telling you. I don’t think you deserve it.”  
  
Baekhyun scowls. “Don’t be an asshole, Chanyeol.”  
  
“Besides,” Chanyeol adds, “we’ve already talked about flowers so many times.”  
  
It’s easy for him. He has actually seen flowers. Baekhyun can barely imagine them. “So you won’t tell me?” he asks, feigning hurt. Chanyeol lights up and scoffs, but there’s a smile pulling at the corners of his lips.  
  
“You’re a menace. Come here,” he says, opening his arms and welcoming Baekhyun against his chest. The boy shuffles until he’s leaning heavily on Chanyeol’s arm and shoulder instead of the wall.  
  
“I’m here,” he says, his voice catching a little when Chanyeol’s arm sneaks around his back, his hand big and warm on his shoulder.  
  
But _here_ doesn’t seem to be enough for Chanyeol, who tugs and pulls until Baekhyun’s head is resting on the hollow between Chanyeol’s neck and shoulder. Baekhyun’s world smells of ash, wet stone and cold, but when he’s in Chanyeol’s arms everything else disappears, and if he closes his eyes and breathes he can almost swear he feels the wind blowing from the sea during a warm summer night. He can smell flowers.  
  
Chanyeol leans his back against the naked stone, taking Baekhyun with him, sprawled and tangled and quiet. He looks up while he thinks, staring towards the point where the tall walls of the well seem to converge. They’re so tall they look like they’re stretching into infinity, giving an oppressive, heavy feeling. Baekhyun knows there’s an exit, up there, but it’s so far away it could as well not exist. It’s not like Chanyeol could reach it anyway. The golden chains twinkle with his every movement.  
  
Chanyeol is probably thinking the same thing, because his eyes narrow and there’s a flicker of muscle in his jaw, an almost imperceptible twitch of anger, and his arms tighten around Baekhyun with a rattle of chains. It’s difficult when he’s like this, so close and yet so far away, so Baekhyun pulls himself up on his elbows, brushes his fingers against Chanyeol’s biceps and his lips against Chanyeol’s cheek. He ignores his surprised look.  
  
“Flowers,” he says. “Now you’ve got everything you wanted, so tell me about flowers.”  
  
Flowers. What a nice words. The more he repeats it, the more it fits in his mouth, like something he used to say in the past, a long time ago.  
  
Chanyeol looks at him, his eyes untidy and raw.  
  
“Flowers are fragile. They’re easily crushed and, even if nothing crushes them, they don’t last long. They die soon.”  
  
Oh, this is new. Usually Chanyeol talks about colors and smells and things Baekhyun can’t relate to, but this time...  
  
“Do they? Then they’re not that different from the people of the Netherworld, I guess.”  
  
Chanyeol exhales and Baekhyun can feel it against his hair, dancing on his black strands, and against his cheek, reverberating inside Chanyeol’s chest where he’s laid his head.  
  
“I wouldn’t say that. Flowers are different from the people here. True, they’re gone too soon and it takes nothing to destroy them, but they’re tender and colorful and they make you feel like you’re too ugly and big and clumsy to touch them.”  
  
“Mh,” hums Baekhyun, not really convinced. “Isn’t that because your hands are too big?”  
  
That makes Chanyeol snort. A small victory.  
  
Baekhyun leans into Chanyeol’s warmth and flexes his fingers. They’re full of bumps, from all the times he had to climb down a steep rock wall or scrambled against the ground while hiding from a Fury, and they’re stained, like everything in Dakrya, the city of _koal_. But they’re tapered and elegant, even under all that dirt, and Baekhyun knows Chanyeol loves them.  
  
“Do you think I would crush the flowers too?”  
  
“No,” says Chanyeol, shaking his head, black fire burning in his eyes. He takes Baekhyun’s hand in his own and brings both to his heart. “I’m sure your hand was made to hold flowers, Baekhyun.”  


 

~

  
  
  


 

**45**

  
  
Baekhyun’s hand was _not_ made to hold flowers, after all.  
  
His fingers tighten around the hilt of the dagger, without hesitation, without a jolt. He doesn’t have the luxury to shake. Dakrya is shaking, Ten is shaking, everything in Baekhyun is shaking, everything but the hand holding the dagger. The blade moves, with a fluidity, with a grace, with a beauty Baekhyun didn’t know could be found within him. The Weeper falls on the ground with a groan and a wet, liquid sound, clutching his abdomen where red is quickly spreading on the white tunic. His mask falls and Baekhyun looks at the face of the boy he just stabbed - _oh no, he’s a boy, what have I done, whathaveIdone_. He just stabbed a boy, and he can’t even remember if his body held some kind of resistance against the sharp edge of the dagger, he can’t remember if he shouted, he can’t remember the color of his eyes, hidden behind the mask, but he can see them now. He’s terrified. Baekhyun is terrified too. He feels sick.  
  
“Baekhyun, we must go!”  
  
He barely realizes Ten has grabbed his arm, pulling him, dragging him forward. He opens his mouth, to say something like, _he’s dying, we must help him_ , and he feels himself saying, “Wait, he’ll call the others.”  
  
The implication of what he’s just said - there’s only one way to keep his mouth shut, after all - has no time to settle uncomfortably around them, because Ten pulls him harder. “We won’t be here anymore, but we must go now!”  
  
One last look at the boy on the ground, a boy Baekhyun has almost killed. He could have been Baekhyun’s age and he’s probably a son of miners, just like Baekhyun. And Baekhyun could’ve played with him, ten, twelve, fifteen, twenty years ago, in the slums of Dakrya, they could’ve played catch and hide-and-seek and guards and thieves and all kinds of games. Now, he’s just a boy who wants to kill Baekhyun. A boy Baekhyun has almost killed.  
  
“Baekhyun! We have no time!”  
  
He turns his back to the wounded guard and gestures for Ten to follow him.  
  
“Come on,” he says, “this way!”  
  
There are guards at every corner, but Baekhyun and Ten are Harbingers, used to tiptoe around monsters, their foot light and silent, ghost steps in the darkness.  
  
“We’re almost there,” he says to Ten, who looks so lost. Of course he is, the poor boy has never set foot in a temple, but Baekhyun has been living in these same dungeons for years.  
The door to the dormitories is still open, even if the all the rooms are empty. Yerim has gone back to her hometown, Metameleya, after her First Flight, and Taehyung was sent to travel on the route between Aitia and Amortia. Baekhyun is the last Harbinger left in Dakrya.  
  
“Here,” he says, pointing to a secret door hidden behind a mirror, “go ahead, I’ll close it.”  
  
A cloud of dust explodes around them as soon as they step inside, and Baekhyun hears Ten cough. He closes the door, making sure the mirror is back in place, and then he throws a handful of magic fire crystals in the air. They float around him, attracted by the ring of koal in his hands, and at their dim light the contours of a very messy, very unused storage room take shape, emerging from the thick darkness.  
  
“Where are we?” asks Ten, between coughing fits.  
  
“A supply duct. The Weepers used it to receive _koal_ from the mines, but this vein isn’t used anymore and the new one is on the other side of the Temple, under the Circle of the Carpenters, so they built another tunnel and stopped using this one.”  
  
“Will they follow us here?” Ten asks, still scared.  
  
“I doubt so. There are countless ways we could’ve taken to run away and they won’t be able to check them all. Not during a war, anyway. Keep going, though. In the remote eventuality they do check this one, I want us to be far away.”  
  
He leaves the bundle of _koal_ in Ten’s hands and the shards of magic fires crowd around the boy, attracted by the main source of their power. “Go ahead, I’ll watch our back.”  
  
“I don’t really know the way,” says the boy, in his bizarre accent.  
  
“Don’t worry, from now on it’s all straight, we just have to follow the tunnel. I’ll take the lead once we get to the mines, if you don’t mind.”  
  
Ten nods and they start walking, together.  
  
It’s not the first time Baekhyun travels with someone, but all the other times were First Flights with a _pais_. This time it’s different. Ten moves like he owns the place, counting the tiles on the ground or staring at the doodles on the walls, unconsciously trying to pin his own landmarks, to memorize every detail of this new path.  
  
Baekhyun only looks ahead. Among the countless graffiti on the walls there’s also his own handwriting, right next to Yoona’s, from the time she took him down here and taught him how to recognize the messy scribbles Harbingers leave on the walls of the maze sometimes, to warn other Harbingers of possible dangers to come.  
  
“Are you alright?” asks Ten, after a while. “I mean, your friend… I’m sorry we had to leave him behind.”  
  
“They won’t kill him. I don’t think they can.” Baekhyun hopes they can’t.  
  
“That doesn’t mean he’ll be alright.”  
  
No, it doesn’t, but there’s nothing Baekhyun can do about it. He’s powerless and he can’t stand it.  
  
“Why did you come?” he asks, out of the blue. “We don’t even know each other and the most friendly thing I did to you was trying to slit your throat open, and yet you still came back to save me.”  
  
“I told you, you’re a legend. I grew up listening to stories of you, there’s not a Harbinger out there who didn’t. Byun Baekhyun, favorite of the phoi. We all wanted to be like you.”  
  
Oh, the irony.  
  
“You shouldn’t. Want to be like me, I mean. I’m not better than anyone else,” he adds, to counter the disbelief in Ten’s eyes. “Just more selfish, probably.”  
  
“I don’t believe it.”  
  
“Ten, I almost killed a man today. I almost... I’ve never killed anyone in my life, but I would’ve killed him. I wanted to kill him.” There’s a pause, to collect his courage. To collect the truth and taste it on the flat of his tongue. It tastes sour. “I don’t want to be that kind of person. I’ve never wanted to… you know, take revenge, even if the Temple has taken everything from me. But Chanyeol… Chanyeol is everything I have left. And now they took him away too.”  
  
“We’ll save him, don’t worry. We’ll win this war and then Dakrya will be free.”  
  
Free? Baekhyun doesn’t know about that. Freedom is a foreign concept, more a delusion than a foolish hope. Ten doesn’t know anything.  
  
“We won’t win this war, Ten.”  
  
“You can’t be sure, just because you don’t care…”  
  
“No, Ten. We can’t win this war. You saw what was happening down there, the ritual. The Hiereus is preparing an attack, something the Beacon won’t be able to withstand. It has already happened in the past. I’ve seen it happen.”  
  
Baekhyun has seen it all. Old, abandoned cities with old, abandoned records. Baekhyun knows what the Hiereus plans to do. They’ll blast half of the city away with a single blow. “Tomorrow, we’ll all be dead.” All except Chanyeol, who cannot die. They’ll leave him down there, all alone, until the end of time.  
  
“We must tell the Despotes,” says Ten, his face paler than Baekhyun’s. “We must tell him now.”  
  
But wouldn’t that be useless? What can Do Kyungsoo, the great, the almighty, the arrogant Despotes of Dakrya, do to avoid this disaster? Nothing. There’s nowhere to run. The maze closes around Dakrya like a trap, like a vice. What to do? _What to do?_  
  
A phos, a single phos, falls on Baekhyun’s pale hand, slow, unhurried, like a cherry blossom petal, like a dandelion seed flying away before a summer downpour, like a golden leaf, like a lonely snowflake. A phos.  
  
“What is a phos doing here?” asks Ten, as the little light palpitates on Baekhyun’s open palm. “They shouldn’t be able to trespass… The barrier…”  
  
The barrier… Baekhyun flinches. There were phoi inside of Dakrya earlier too, and the barrier looked weaker than Baekhyun remembered it, thinner, stretched too tight around the city, like a tunic too sizes too small for a child who was too eager to grow up. Oh, of course. The ritual the Weepers are trying to perform requires an incredibly amount of magic. _Of course._ Where would the Hiereus extract that much energy, if not from the barrier?  
  
And that’s when Baekhyun has an idea. A crazy, stupid idea. An idea Chanyeol would never approve of. But Chanyeol is not here to stop anyone.  
  
“We must go, the Despotes should be warned…”  
  
“Ten,” he says, taking the boy’s wrist and stopping him. “I’m not going.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“I’ll take you to the mines and then we’ll split up. There’s something else I must do. There could be a way to save Chanyeol and stop the Hiereus.”  
  
“What is it? I’m coming with you!”  
  
“No, you really need to tell Kyungsoo what is happening… Tell him I’m going to the Oldest-Dakrya, he’ll know what I’m talking about.”  
  
The blood drains from Ten’s face. “Oh no, Baekhyun, we don’t go there! We _can’t_ go there! There’s something dark down there, something evil...”  
  
Baekhyun looks at him, silver staring into silver again, and the phos flies between them, faster and faster, a falling star.  
  
“I know.”  


 

~

  
  
  


 

**19**

  
  
In the end, Baekhyun doesn’t tell Chanyeol he’s going to leave tomorrow.  
  
He should, because they’re friends and because Chanyeol trusts Baekhyun to be honest with him - Baekhyun even _promised_ to be honest with him. And he should tell him because, if he doesn’t, Kyungsoo will do it in his place and Chanyeol will be even angrier, not knowing it from Baekhyun first.  
  
He should, but he won’t.  
  
There’s a reason Harbingers don’t go to the Oldest-Dakrya. Even Yoona had told Baekhyun to stay away. “That place,” she said, the only time they talked about it, “is cursed. And not cursed like us, that place is cursed for real. Something lives down there, something that should not be bothered. Let the maze have its secrets, Baekhyun, sometimes ignorance is bliss.”  
  
“Will you tell me about this secret mission Kyungsoo gave you today?”  
  
“Mmh, I don’t know.”  
  
Chanyeol frowns. “I know he’s plotting something. I’m not joking Baekhyun, I’m worried for you.”  
  
Baekhyun is worried too. And scared. And cold. “Would you play me a song, to help me feel better?” he asks, batting his short lashes at Chanyeol.  
  
Baekhyun is not good at lying, and even if Chanyeol is not Kyungsoo, who can pinpoint exactly what Baekhyun is thinking, he should be blind to miss the conflicting clash of silver in his eyes. So Baekhyun doesn’t lie, he simply doesn’t answer. He changes the subject and leads the conversation to safer shores, to green fields and colorful flowers, to Chanyeol’s fingers drawing arabesques of sound on the strings of the small lyre, to his voice murmuring small things – not quite a song, more like a tale of a faraway world.  
  
It’s easy to believe Chanyeol’s words, but it’s difficult to imagine the things he speaks of. Flowers and birds and sunsets. The warmth of the fire. A warmth Baekhyun’s soul knows nothing about. If he dies, he will never know anything about it. But if he succeeds, if he can bring the Klæin to Kyungsoo, he will let Chanyeol go. And then, maybe Chanyeol will take Baekhyun with him to the Overworld.  
  
“Don’t make that face,” says Chanyeol. He extends an arm to catch the frown on Baekhyun’s face in his hand and the shackles at his wrist twinkle but they ignore them. Chanyeol focuses on the unhappy slope of Baekhyun’s sadness, on the way it turns his expression sour and a bit distant, and simply sends it away, just like that, smoothing the wrinkles on Baekhyun’s face and lifting the corners of his mouth upwards. His heart beats under Baekhyun’s palm, steady and strong, bright, like a beacon in the darkness. “That’s better. You can’t come here without a smile, Baekhyun.”  
  
Baekhyun has never said it out loud, but all his smiles are for Chanyeol, the only one who cares enough to ask for them. Baekhyun collects them, little moments, little fragments of himself, he saves them for moments like these, when the glow of the phoi subsides and the only thing he can see is Chanyeol’s expectant expression. It’s like a trade.  
  
(Baekhyun is a Harbinger so he knows everything about trade. You give something to someone and they give you something back, of the same value. Well, it doesn’t really matter if the value is the same if the other person wants it badly. It works like this between him and Chanyeol too. It’s not like Baekhyun’s smiles are worth as much as Chanyeol’s smiles, but Chanyeol wants them so badly and Baekhyun would never tell him no, so he smiles for Chanyeol and he gets one of Chanyeol’s precious, dazzling smiles back. There’s so much fondness, so much warmth in them. Baekhyun doesn’t know what to do with it. He’s afraid, if he collects too much of Chanyeol, that one day he’ll self-combust, burning from the inside with Chanyeol’s fire.)  
  
“You’re always thinking too much.”  
  
He raises his eyes and lays them on Chanyeol. On his long, wild and messy dark hair. On his brows eyes and big hands and on his long arms. Has he always looked so young? Or maybe Baekhyun is the one who’s growing older every day, while Chanyeol never changes.  
  
Chanyeol draws him closer and closer, his brow furrowing at Baekhyun’s prolonged silence. He’s so cautious these days, so _careful_. Sometimes, Baekhyun catches him staring and curling his hands on the fabric of his vest, as if trying to keep them from brushing against Baekhyun’s. Other times, Chanyeol is unabashedly, unapologetically close, like now, invading Baekhyun’s personal space and challenging Baekhyun to send him away.  
  
Baekhyun looks down but doesn’t get away, even if he feels self-conscious of his pale skin, of his translucent eyes, even if he knows he’s not the same as Chanyeol. I’s like they’re made of different stuff, he and Chanyeol. Baekhyun’s soul is made of ashes and silver, Chanyeol’s is made of burning fire. But lately, Chanyeol looks at Baekhyun like he’s never seen anything more beautiful and Baekhyun doesn’t know what to make of it. He doesn’t dare to hope.  
  
“If you were able to get out of here, what would you do?” he asks. “Have you remembered what you were looking for?”  
  
“No, I didn’t.”  
  
Baekhyun exhales, unseen, in relief and Chanyeol’s hands dance on his naked arms, drawing wings on his shoulder blades. “But would you still try to look for it, if you could be free?”  
  
“Maybe I would,” he says, voice deeper than the deepest crevices of the maze. Baekhyun falls through it, he’s been falling through it for the past five years, waiting and waiting and fearing the moment he’ll crash against the bottom, but there doesn’t seem to be one, not with Chanyeol. “Do you want to know a secret?”  
  
Baekhyun doesn’t nod, he trembles.  
  
“I would take you with me.”  
  
He shivers, his sharp intake of breath the only sound between them, and when he looks up Chanyeol is blurring the lines again, looking at him like he can’t see anything else.  
  
“To find what you’re looking for?” he says, and even his voice shimmers. He clasps his hands together, not knowing what to do with them, until Chanyeol’s traps them in his own.  
  
“No, not really,” he says, eyes carefully scanning Baekhyun’s face to make sure that Baekhyun is listening, that Baekhyun is paying attention - as if he could ever look at something else other than Chanyeol. “I don’t think I need to look anymore.”  
  
Baekhyun almost falls apart, but Chanyeol’s words keep him together. They keep him whole. He kisses Chanyeol’s first, and it’s awkward, lips meeting awkwardly in the middle, noses bumping, and suddenly Baekhyun has too much skin on his body and he doesn’t know what to do with it, he doesn’t know what to do with his hands, with his eyes or with his lips, and his hearts threatens to burst in his chest from the fear, but still, he kisses Chanyeol first, because the maze is big and scary and it’s killing him slowly, journey after journey, hours blending into one another. He walks into the darkness and he talks with lights no one else can see, bringing messages to people who hate him on behalf of people who hate him. How many cycles until he dies? How many letters to deliver, how many prayers to whisper feverishly, how many dangers to overcome? The maze is consuming him, eating everything there’s left of Baekhyun the human and leaving behind a cold boy with silver eyes, too tired to even summon the phoi when he loses his way and the maze closes around him, the darkness heavy and uncomfortable like a wet blanket, and nothing seems real, nothing has ever been real but this moment, this single, precious moment.  
  
So he kisses Chanyeol, because it’s the thing he’s wanted to do since he realized he was a boy and not a child, when not even being a boy was enough. He waited until he felt he could love Chanyeol like a young man, not a boy, not a child, not a friend, nor a brother, but like a lover he wants Chanyeol to only look at him, to make him feel real, alive.  
  
The world stops, unsure whether it’s supposed to keep spinning or fall apart like Baekhyun’s ability to think, to breathe, to control his limbs. He freezes, his lips still awkwardly sloped over Chanyeol’s, his hands hanging mid-air a breath away from Chanyeol’s arms. He leaned over - he was the one who did it - and yet he feels like he’s the one who was ambushed. He feels strangely solid, strangely real, like everything, all his life until now has been nothing but a dream, and this is waking up, and it’s scary, and making the wrong move could shatter reality and throw him back in the dream.  
  
His eyes meet Chanyeol’s, they share a breath, a single pant to fill the static noise in their ears. And then Chanyeol is leaning forward, his chest flush against Baekhyun’s chest, and grabbing Baekhyun’s hands to put them on his own shoulders, following the veins on Baekhyun’s arms to hug him back, and he tilts his head so that their lips slide together again, insistent, greedy, and Chanyeol is kissing back - _he’s kissing Baekhyun back_. His hands travel up to cup Baekhyun’s face and his lips coax Baekhyun’s lips open, and his tongue… His tongue laps against the roof of Baekhyun’s mouth, wet, hot and nothing like Baekhyun has ever done before.  
  
They kiss until they’re not kissing anymore, just panting in each other’s mouths, and they fall in a confused heap of limbs. Chanyeol crushes Baekhyun with his weight, with his mouth, with his wandering hands, until Baekhyun feels like his body is not strong enough to withstand Chanyeol’s kisses and touches.  
  
“What are we doing?” asks Baekhyun, and his lips tingle when he speaks so Chanyeol kisses them again, and again. “Chanyeol, Chanyeol stop. I don’t think I understand. I’m not what you’re looking for, Chanyeol.”  
  
“But I do. I do, Baekhyun, and even if you weren’t the right person in the beginning, now you are,” he leans down, to leave feathery kisses in the crook of Baekhyun’s fingers.  
  
Baekhyun sighs, speechless, because how can he counter that? He doesn’t have the heart to tell Chanyeol he’s been in love with him since he was fifteen years old, he already loved him when he still didn’t know what love was.  
  
Maybe tomorrow Baekhyun will die, but this, at least, this belongs to him. Chanyeol cups his face in his hands and kisses him again, and Baekhyun doesn’t have the heart to tell him he’s going to break the rules tomorrow. He’s going to do what both Yoona and Chanyeol told him to never do. Baekhyun will go back to Oldest-Dakrya.  
  


 

~

  
  
  


 

**46**

  
  
  
They call it Road-That-Falls-Into-Darkness, and it’s not a road, it’s a staircase and a bridge and a bet on your life. It’s a path carved into the raw stone, an endless row of steps, sometimes blunt, sometimes sharp, sometimes smooth and geometrically shaped, and sometimes disappearing into the stone, shakily suspended onto the deepest void. Not even Furies dare to walk down the Road, where just one faux step means certain death. It’s a slow descent into madness. It’s the fastest way to reach the deep crevasses surrounding the cave where Oldest-Dakrya was built, in an underground valley only surrounded by graveyards of old cities and graveyards of old mines.  
  
Baekhyun doesn’t really have a plan, he doesn’t have anything but a secret he’s kept for the last five years. He has his own name, Chanyeol’s name, his silver whistle and an old secret. He has no fear.  
  
_Something dark,_ Ten said, _something evil._ That might be true.  
  
Dakrya was the first Buried City, the greatest Buried City, the only Buried City for a long time. It’s not on the maps of the Temple of the Klæin, but it’s on the maps of every Harbinger Baekhyun has ever known. Everyone knows where it is. Everyone knows not to go down there.  
  
And yet... And yet Baekhyun was originally a curious child who liked to explore the abandoned tunnels of the Black near his home. He grew up into a curious teenager who liked to explore the ruins of the maze and one day he stumbled into the one place Yoona had warned him against.  
  
Baekhyun is not a child, nor a teenager now. He’s not curious. He’s just angry. The secret buried under Oldest-Dakrya, the secret of the maze... Baekhyun is sure the Hiereus knows it. The Ruler of Pophos knew it, Kyungsoo’s father knew it. Kyungsoo... he almost came to know it, he sent Baekhyun down there to find out what was written on the Klæin, but Baekhyun never told him.  
  
There are truths, buried thruts, that are not meant to see the light ever again, truths that could change the world and shape it anew, if only they were revealed. What happens when the foundations of the world get shaken? What happens when the perfect society the Temple has tried to build for the past thousand years starts to collapse under the weight of a truth too heavy to be withstood by this ghost world? What will happen when Baekhyun reaches Oldest-Dakrya and finds what he is looking for?  
  
_A great question,_ he thinks, _and Dakrya is just about to find out the answer by itself._  
  
He reaches the last step of the Road-That-Falls-Into-Darkness and light explodes in front of his eyes, a light more brilliant and powerful than the gloomy glow of the magic fires stored in the dungeons of the Temple and in the warehouses of the Despotes. It’s the light of millions of phoi, like countless stars in the sky, lighting Oldest-Dakrya up from within. The city glows within their lights. So many phoi, for the greatest danger of the maze.  
  
Baekhyun smiles.  
  
According to the legends, the Unseen gave the Weepers the power to protect this world. He gave them his words and his magic, and he told the first Hiereus to keep order in the Netherworld in his absence.  
  
Disrupting that order, an order that has been around for hundreds and hundreds of years, is almost impossible. No matter how hard they try, Kyungsoo and Donghae - even that Queen of Apistein they talked about, who hung the Weepers of her city and burned their temple - no matter how strong and radicated and stubborn their revolution is, it’s not enough. It will never be enough.  
  
Normal humans can’t do anything against the power of the gods. They can win against other humans, they can triumph over the Weepers, they can burn the temples, if they want, and the order will not even be disrupted.  
  
But Baekhyun is not a simple human. After all, even Chanyeol said it.  
  
_The Klæin doesn’t unite the cities. There’s something else that keeps them together. Without it, Klæin or not, all the cities would drift apart._  
  
Harbingers are humanity’s last hope. If something must change, if won’t be through a revolution. It will be a revelation, and it will start from a Harbinger.  
  
(It doesn’t happen all at once.  
  
It can’t happen all at once, because society is perfect, society is the mathematics of life.  
  
You are born in your little hole, in your Buried City - buried underground, like a tomb. You come to existence in the darkness and you live in the darkness. Legends talk about the sun, legends talk about the moon, but they’re only legends. You spend your entire life in your hole, you die in your hole. There’s no space for rebellion, for the unexpected, for wild thoughts of freedom. There’s only the maze, surrounding the cities, encircling them, holding humanity in a tight embrace like a jealous lover.  
  
Revolutions are built on paper castles, under the sky, but there’s no sky in the Netherworld. People are born, live and die and they never set foot outside their city. The perfect prison, the perfect punishment, and most of the time they don’t even realize. It’s easy. It’s effortless.  
Harbingers are a different league. How can you control someone who evades control? How can you trap someone who can slip through the bars and run away? The third book of the Klæin said that the first cursed children were stoned to death, but even death has a cost in the Buried Cities, so the first rulers decided to throw the boys with the curse of the waning moon out in the maze and watch them die. Except they didn’t die. They ran away, seeing invisible lights in the darkness with their silver eyes. They survived in the maze.  
  
That’s where Harbingers began. That’s where Harbingers, someday, will end.)  


 

~

  
  
  


 

**20**

  
  
The stone sings around Baekhyun sometimes. The earth breathes. The maze screams when it’s angry and hums when it’s sleepy, lost lullabies in the darkness. The phoi dance in Baekhyun’s hair, swirling around his fingers. Dakrya, the first Dakrya, the Oldest-Dakrya, sleeps.  
  
It’s been at least three years since Baekhyun came to these ruins. He first visited them when he was eighteen years old and lost, and Chanyeol was gone, before he found the courage to throw a forged letter at the Despotes in order to attract his attention. Baekhyun had looked for Chanyeol, everywhere in the maze, hoping that the boy had found a way to escape, or that the new Despotes, unlike the old one, had had pity on him and decided to free the demon chained under the city. (Foolish hopes. Do Kyungsoo is the same as his father, the same as every ruler of the Buried Cities. Ruthless and greedy. And a little crazy.)  
  
Baekhyun has traveled through the entire maze, looking for Chanyeol, until he finally found this city of lost memories.  
  
Oldest-Dakrya is many things. A lost city, a ghost city, and also a city of light, a city of phoi. There’s an ocean of them,. They appear from everywhere and nowhere, waves of pale light shimmering on the dusty floors, flooding the airy houses and hiding behind the colossal columns of the temples, and the entire city shines with their glow.  
  
Too much light, in the maze, only means danger, and Baekhyun holds his breath, waiting for the monsters to pound on him at every turn, but nothing happens. It’s like a spell has fallen on this city, like the stories Baekhyun’s mother told him, of cursed princesses falling asleep in towers, the entire reign falling asleep with them.  
  
_Did we really come from a place like this?_ he thinks, placing his hand over a pillar so massive and thick ten men together wouldn’t be able to hug it. Baekhyun is used to the claustrophobic, narrow little tunnels of his Dakrya, nests of stone and darkness, but this city, this city is made of white marble and red tiles on the roofs of old houses, with wide streets and colossal statues hiding everywhere like stone guardians, perfect in their stillness. But Oldest-Dakrya is also different from the gaudy lights of Pophos, from the dark, volcanic stone of Lype, from the spartan frugality of Metameleya, from the misery of Aganaktein. Oldest-Dakrya, with its perfect, geometrical streets, its burgeoning gardens, now abandoned and covered by a patina of melancholy and dust, with its majestic temples and palaces and theaters large enough to hold a single city within their walls, was the oldest Buried City, the first Buried City, for a long time, the only Buried City.  
  
And that’s the reason Baekhyun has come here, at the beginning of everything, at the end of everything, to look for the answer to his question. Kyungsoo wants to know how did it start, Baekhyun only wants to know how will it end.  
  
There are no doors in the temples of Oldest-Dakrya, and not walls, to keep the people outside. Only columns, rows and rows of them, endless colonnades surrounding the _naos_ of the temple. They seem to invite Baekhyun inside. A draft pulls at the hems of his uniform, propelling him to walk forward. He feels so tiny, a miniature toy walking into an abode of titans, his entire existence meaningless in front of the grandiosity of this city.  
  
The Temple is empty, except for the colossal statue of the Unseen in the _naos_. The head of the statue has fallen, leaving only the massive body, one hand holding a cup, the other holding a scepter, and a snake curled at his feet. His features are covered by a helm, that it’s said to give him the power of invisibility that gave him his name, Unseen.  
  
Under the feet of the statue, he finally finds what he was looking for. A casket, a stone chest. If there’s a Klæin, if the first book of the Klæin is still in this city, it must be here, in the _naos_ of the Temple of the Klæin.  
  
The stone is heavy, and the power of the centuries makes it even heavier. Baekhyun has to pull it with his whole body, until he feels his muscles shake and his tendons cry. Finally, the stone falls on the ground with a deafening crash, raising a mushroom of dust around Baekhyun. The phoi squirm and buzz around him, startled by the sudden noise, like little birds taking flight all at once at the first stirring of danger. They fly around the boy, a vortex of pale lights. _What are you doing?_ they seem to say, _just leave!_  
  
But Baekhyun is young and foolish, and the truth is right in front of him, and it shines brighter than the light of the phoi. He silences the lights with a shushing sound and a finger on his mouth. He almost doesn’t see them as they swirl and spin around him, he doesn’t see them at all.  
  
The Klæin, the original Klæin, is not a book, it’s a stele, written in thick, tiny characters.  
Baekhyun sits down. He starts reading.  
  
He doesn’t know for how long it stays down there, sitting cross-legged on the stone. His knees throb and his hands start shaking at some point but he doesn’t stop, he cannot stop. Then, his whole body shakes. The words shake in front of his eyes and that’s when he realizes that he’s not the one who’s shaking. The floor is shaking, the temple is shaking, the city is shaking, in rhythmical waves.  
  
Boom.  
  
Boom.  
  
_Boom._  
  
It’s not a earthquake, he realizes, and the phoi around him seem to explode with light, brighter than he’s ever seen them. It’s not a earthquake. They’re footsteps.  
  
Something is coming, and the darkness around him thickens just when the light of the phoi brightens, two opposite forces fighting each other in front of Baekhyun’s eyes.  
  
He jumps to his feet, leaving the stele on the floor, forgotten for a moment. There’s no place to run, not without knowing where the creature is coming from, so Baekhyun simply hides behind the statue of the Unseen, and prays. What a stupid, foolish boy he is.  
  
The creature, the _thing_ that enters the Temple of the Klæin smells like decay and blood, a smell so revolting it makes Baekhyun retch. He tastes bile and tears in his throat, but he covers his mouth and tries to not make a sound.  
  
It’s big, its shadow so dark and huge that not even the phoi can light it up. Baekhyun can hear it smell the air and he closes his eyes, praying again. There’s silence, for a moment, then _the thing_ roars, and now Baekhyun knows what he’s heard every time a foul whisper comes from the depth of the earth, every time the maze screeches and thunders in the distance, he knows how the nightmares sound when they wrench you awake, except this time there’s no nightmare to wake up from.  
  
There’s nothing but the beast and the way it slams against the statue, making it fall around Baekhyun in a shower of dust and rubble.  
  
The boy raises his eyes, his silver eyes, and the thing he sees is the nightmare itself. He recognizes it, and the creature recognizes him, after seven years - Yoona’s screams, his own screams, but Chanyeol is not here to save him this time. It is a beast, with horns and claws and a bull’s head and no eyes, only empty, scarred sockets. It’s different but it’s the same, and it’s so ugly Baekhyun can’t bear to look at it.  
  
The monster lunges at him and Baekhyun doesn’t move, fear holding his ankles with invisible, cold hands. The claws of the creature miss him by a heartbeat, moving the hair out of his face.  
  
Baekhyun blinks, the buzzing of the phoi so loud now it’s deafening. He turns around and he runs, and the roars of the creature follow him to Dakrya.  
  
-

 

~

  
  
  


 

**47**

  
  
Oldest-Dakrya is just like Baekhyun remembered it, a pale jewel crowned by light. Above Baekhyun’s head, constellations of phoi dot the black ceiling of the cave, a pale imitation of the night sky. Baekhyun summons them and they descend upon him, fluttering. They envelop him in a white embrace.  
  
“Can you stay close, please? I’m scared.” They circle his hand, like a bracelet of diamonds, and he smiles. “Thank you.”  
  
Polite, just like Yoona had taught him. He lets the phoi lead him to the center of the city. He doesn’t need to tell them what he wants, they already know.  
  
For once, Baekhyun doesn’t feel lost. After a life spent wandering in the darkness, a little more than blank, he feels... he feels clarity. Is this what Yoona felt? Is this what Hyukjae, what Taeyeon, what Kikwang, what everyone else felt, before the end?  
  
“Is this what you felt?” he asks the phoi. “Before you died?”  
  
The phoi don’t answer.  
  
“Don’t leave me alone.”  
  
He knows they won’t.  
  
Baekhyun feels the presence of the creature the moment he steps in the Agorà. It’s hiding in the darkness behind the colonnade, staring at him.  
  
“I’m not afraid of you,” he says, more to himself than to the monster. “I’m not afraid of anything.”  
  
It’s a lie, but it fills his chest, his lungs, his throat. It keeps him from screaming.  
  
The creature breathes. Baekhyun can’t see it, but he can feel the way it moves, circling around him, a shapeless mound of anger and hunger.  
  
“Come outside,” he says. “Show yourself.”  
  
The phoi burn, their glow more intense than before, when the monster takes a step in the Agorà. There’s a fight in front of Baekhyun’s eyes, the light of the phoi against the darkness of the creature. Its contours change, refusing to settle on a definite frame. Its shadow moves on its own, drawing nightmares on the ground at Baekhyun’s feet. The creature is an abyss, and it’s staring right at Baekhyun with blind eyes. The boy refuses to step back.  
  
“I know what you are,” he says. “You are the first prisoner of the maze and the guardian of its biggest secret. We’ve already met, a long time ago, and then again, four years ago.”  
  
The creature takes a step towards him, emerging from the cloud of darkness surrounding its body. Up close, it’s even more disgusting than Baekhyun could have ever imagined. On a massive, misshapen body, bulky and grotesque, the cruelty of the gods have placed the head of a bull. It’s too big, disproportioned, with giant horns and blind, white eyes. It’s terrifying and dreadful and pathetic, and for a moment Baekhyun feels pity. This monster, too, was abandoned in this hell, alone, to languish in the darkness forever.  
  
The monster growls, as if sensing Baekhyun’s pity. There’s dried blood on its fists, its abdomen, its hairy legs, and Baekhyun wonders which one of his friends he had killed.  
  
“You are the Minotaur and your duty is to keep Harbinger, people like me, from coming here and uncovering that secret. But you have failed in your only duty. I read the Klæin, when I came here four years ago, and I know that secret.” His voice shakes, the Minotaur keeps watching him with its blind eyes. So many years have passed since their first encounter, the day Yoona died, and it still feels like staring an abyss and having the abyss stare back at him.  
  
Baekhyun clears his throat and his voice rises, clear like crystal, bright like silver.  
  
“And now I’ll go back to Dakrya, to my city, and I’ll share this secret with the people who live there.”  
  
Baekhyun’s voice is too weak and the secret he must reveal is heavy on his tongue. He’s has been swallowing the truth for such a long time that now letting it go seems so difficult. Did he grow fond of this secret? Did this secret grow fond of him?  
  
“Do you understand me?” he asks, voice breaking, squeaking. He can see the monster’s nostrils fluttering, its muscles tensing as he prepares to pounce. Baekhyun, too, is ready. All his life he has been preparing for this moment. Ten years he’s been a Harbinger, ten years spent crawling in the darkness, running away from the darkness, only to be here, the final race of his life, staring at his own nightmares and daring them to chase him.  
  
The Minotaur moves one of its big feet behind, subtly, ready to charge. Baekhyun doesn’t need to move. He doesn’t need to get ready. _I was born and raised to be ready for this moment._  
  
“I am going to tell everyone that we are all already dead and this is the Underworld.”  
  
The Minotaur finally charges against him and Baekhyun jumps on the side to avoid the creature’s fists. He breathes with his nose, smelling ruin and decay, and he laughs like a madman in the creature’s face - this is his nightmare, this is the thing that torn Yoona apart and drowned Baekhyun’s dream in blood, this is the only thing that can save Chanyeol.  
  
“Now catch me, if you can,” he says, before he turns away and runs.  
  
In his eyes, the moon scythe begins to change its shape. The black circle moves, slowly, leaving behind a perfect, blessed bright circle. If Chanyeol was here, he’d tell Baekhyun that the eclipse is finally over. The sun is shining in Baekhyun’s eyes. Baekhyun’s time, too, is almost over.  


 

~

  
  
  


 

**21**

  
  
Baekhyun falls, like a shooting star, in the middle of the Road-That-Falls-To-Darkness, the monster at his heels, its fetid breath on his neck. His skin itches, like a thousand spiders are crawling all over him. He can see tendrils of darkness everywhere, curled around his ankles, on his wrists, invisible chains pulling him down. The words of the Klæin brand his skin, shaping him anew, and Baekhyun doesn’t know how he can hide this secret. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever be able to hide this secret.  
  
He clenches his hands, tightens them to the point of drawing blood. They’re solid, they’re real. He can feel his own pulse, blood flowing through his veins, cold blood maybe, but it’s real. Baekhyun _is_ real. He _is_ alive.  
  
Except he’s not. None of them are. The Despotes, the Weepers, the Harbingers, everyone who lives in the Netherworld. They’re all dead. The Netherworld is, after all, a Field of Punishment. That’s the truth the Temple of the Klæin has hidden for thousands and thousands of years.  
  
The Buried Cities are nothing but prisons, jails for sinners, the Netherworld is the Underworld, the Overworld is simply the world of living people, and Chanyeol... Chanyeol is just a fool who came down here to find someone who is already dead, isn’t he?  
  
How long has it been, since Baekhyun left to look for the Klæin? To him, it feels like an eternity, but it couldn’t have been more than a couple of cycles. And yet, Baekhyun is not the same boy who walked down these same stairs less than fifty hours ago. That boy was alive and Baekhyun, this Baekhyun, is already dead, so how can they be the same person?  
  
He regrets opening that book. He was silly, looking for an answer when he still hadn’t decided the question, and now Baekhyun has found himself with a truth he didn’t want and no idea what to do with it. And a monster chasing him for revealing the only secret that should never be revealed. The only truth that matters, the only lie that matters.  
  
The Klæin is a book of the dead.  
  
Baekhyun runs and sobs, choking on the cold air of the maze, on his own spit, on fear and terror and tiredness. The shaky glow of the phoi envelops him in a hug. _Come on,_ they seem to say, _come on, little thing. You little, pathetic, brave boy, let’s take you home._  
  
He gasps, breathless, when the creature slams him against a wall. He can barely avoid the next lunge, but he clearly hears the screeching lines of the monster’s claw on the grey stone, amplified by the darkness. He keeps running.  
  
The truth has been in front of him all along, but he always refused to see it. How can human beings survive underground, where it’s cold and dark and there’s no air to breathe, no wind, no sun? He knew, he always knew something was wrong, but still, he pathetically chose to cling to this half-life rather than looking for the truth.  
  
Did the phoi also know, before they died, before they became lights, when they were still Harbingers, cursed children, bearing the sign of the moon, did they know they were already dead? Did they care? Did they still want to live? Because Baekhyun wants to live.  
  
“I don’t want to be dead,” he pants, and the phoi flurries around the monster, cascading on its shoulders, in front of its snout, as if they’re trying to blind it. But the monster is already blind, only negative space in its hollow sockets, blacker than black.  
  
The Guardian can’t see Baekhyun, but it can breathe his fear. It can hear his shallow breaths. It knows exactly where to find its prey when it charges against Baekhyun, head-on, his only warning a bellowing sound. It’s only instinct that makes the boy jump on the side to avoid the massive horns of the monster. His knees take the brunt of the fall and he rolls down, getting up immediately to avoid another assault coming from his blind side. He backs up against a wall, as the creature shakes its thick, disproportioned head, confused.  
  
Behind Baekhyun, there’s only stone. In front of him, hunched down and breathing harshly, the monster. On his side, the road ends in a thick precipice, a crevice so deep he can’t see the bottom. On the other side of the crevice, another bridge.  
  
The Guardian can’t see, he wouldn’t know where to jump, right? Right? Baekhyun’s heart beats in his throat and he swallows, pushing it back into his own chest. Hope blooms in his chest, unwanted, unnecessary, and yet still there. _Live._ He wants to live. Even if he’s already dead, even if nothing matters. Baekhyun wants to go back and see Chanyeol. (He wants Chanyeol to take him away like he promised.)  
  
It’s all or nothing, now or never again. The Guardian takes a few shaky steps back, ready to charge for the last time, sure that Baekhyun has nowhere else to go. Baekhyun take a few steps back too. He starts running together with the monster.  
  
The massive clawed fists close against nothing as Baekhyun’s feet leave the ground. He soars, like a silverbird taking flight for the first time, and for a moment it’s really his First Flight all over again, running away from this same monster, fifteen years old and scared and crying.  
  
For that fleeting, glorious moment Baekhyun doesn’t fall. He flies.  
  
He lands on the ground, harshly, scraping his knees and palms, and rolls down for a few meters. On the other side of the cliff, the monster roars, furious at being denied its prey.  
Baekhyun gets up, slowly. He’s bleeding and hurting everywhere, but he gets up and looks at the monster and laughs, like crazy.  
  
“Come on, I’m here! I’m fucking here, you monster, and it’s the second time you’re letting me walk away.”  
  
The following growl is deafening. It makes the walls shake. The creature charges again, ready to chase Baekhyun, unable to see the gaping chasm between them.  
  
“You want me? Catch me if you can!”  
  
He shouts, breathless, and the words stab his lungs and abuse his throat. He smiles, as he watches the Guardian of the Klæin run down the cliff and disappear in the abyss, followed by its inhuman hollering.  
  
-

 

~

  
  
  


 

**48**

  
  
The Minotaur follows Baekhyun to the edge of the city, only stopping in proximity of the barrier. It can’t see it and it can’t smell it, but it can feel the magic of the Hiereus still permeating the stone, hostile and cold, and the monster knows, even in its limited brain, that the Buried Cities are off-limits.  
  
_This won’t go._  
  
Baekhyun can feel the barrier too. It’s faint, blinking like the exhausted lamps of Pophos. How long until the Hiereus run out of power? Can Baekhyun even wait that long? No, he can’t. He steps closer to the barrier, close enough that the beast can smell him.  
  
“Come on,” he calls, “come on big guy, third time’s the charm, isn’t it?”  
  
The Minotaur heaves a deep, tired breath. Baekhyun should be tired too. He let the creature chase him for hours, luring him back from the deepest ravines of Oldest-Dakrya, up the Road-That-Falls-Into-Darkness, following the ruins Dakrya left behind in its wake, and now they stand, the boy and the beast, facing each other, the barrier of Dakrya the only thing between them.  
  
Normally, Baekhyun wouldn’t have survived such a long chase. His body, so thin, so fragile, all cold blood and translucent, pale skin, shouldn’t have been unable to compete with the superhuman strength of the Minotaur, but not today. Today, Baekhyun’s eyes shine silver, the moon scythe turning to a complete circle. Baekhyun’s feet are silver too, fast and light, unstoppable, as if he’s possessed by some sort of glorious impetus, a crazy spirit that blows life in his limbs.  
  
He’s not going to die until he gets what he wants.  
  
“I know what you are,” he says, stepping even closer, his voice taunting the monster. “I know why you’ve been placed in this maze. It’s a punishment.”  
  
Chanyeol told him the story of the Minotaur, a beast, born from the mad love of a woman and an animal, born from the _hubris_ of that woman’s husband. The king put the monster in a maze, a labyrinth - oh, isn’t that fitting? The gods must have been laughing at this joke - until a hero came to slay him. Chanyeol never told Baekhyun how the story ended. “But,” he said, “you should never go back to Oldest-Dakrya and face the Minotaur, Baekhyun. It’s not like us. It has the body of a man, but it’s an animal and it only knows hunger and darkness and madness.”  
  
“Don’t worry,” laughed Baekhyun, “I’m not a hero. I don’t need to go back.”  
  
Baekhyun is not a hero. He’s a Harbinger. He delivers messages. And this is the last message he’ll ever deliver, a message for the Hiereus, from his own self.  
  
“Come on monster, if you let me go a third time the Unseen will punish you even more. What will he take away next time? Your tongue? Your hands? You can’t afford to turn and crawl back to your nest in Oldest-Dakrya. Come and take me, let’s put an end to this chase.”  
  
The monster takes a step, its oversized hands sizzling at the contact with foreign magic. It hurts and the Minotaur groans, bellowing at the ceiling, but Baekhyun’s words hurt more.  
  
“Come on,” he calls, “you freak, you disgusting thing. You’ll never be like me, you’ll never be loved,” he says, because, in the end, isn’t that what everyone wants? He’s sure no one has ever loved that monster. Not even its mother.  
  
The Minotaur punches the barrier and it hurts, again, magic burning its hands, but it’s not enough to make the Minotaur stop. It keeps punching and punching and punching and the barrier of Dakrya shakes under its fists.  
Baekhyun doesn’t move. He stays, to make sure the Minotaur breaks the barrier. He’s not even sure the Minotaur can destroy the barrier, but if phoi can enter, Furies can enter too.  
  
Baekhyun hopes Ten managed to go back to Dakrya and warn the Despotes about Baekhyun’s plan, because, once inside, the Minotaur will not make any distinction between the men of the Despotes and the men of the Temple, between soldiers and Weepers and civilians. Baekhyun hopes no one innocent dies because of him today.  
  
_But really, are there any innocent people in this world? Aren’t we all sinners? Isn’t that the reason we’re here?_  
  
“I’m here,” he shouts again, and it’s the last straw, the last punch. The barrier is going to give up any moment now. Baekhyun flexes his legs, ready to bounce away like a coiled spring. “Isn’t this what you wanted? To find people? I’m giving you a Buried City, I’m giving you Dakrya. I’m giving you my life, if you’re strong enough to take it.”  
  
The moment the Minotaur’s fist touches the barrier for the last time, the entire city trembles. It’s like a collective shiver is running through every single tunnel, every single hole, every abandoned mine. Then, the barrier explodes.  
  
Fragments of magic hit Baekhyun as the power holding the city together, keeping it safe, disappears in a cloud of dust and purple smoke. The wave of power pushes him forward, making him lose his footing. He was not expecting this outcome. He finds himself on the ground, his ears ringing with the sound of the explosion, his eyes blinded by the dust. That’s when things go downhill.  
  
The Minotaur rams against him and its meaty fists find Baekhyun’s chest, taking his breath away. He keels over, coughing blood. _That probably broke a rib,_ he thinks, and then, a more pressing, urgent thought, _fuck, I can’t get up, fuck, fuck, fuck,_. Pain explodes in his chest and more blood presses against his lips. The creature groans, ready to charge again, and Baekhyun looks up, eyes silver and wide. He’s not afraid, he’s not fucking afraid, he’s angry, because this is not how it was supposed to end. He was supposed to save Chanyeol... He was supposed to change things. He was supposed to make a difference...  
  
The Minotaur lowers his horns and strikes, head-on, ready to gore him.  


 

~

  
  
  


 

**22**

  
  
Going to Chanyeol is the first thing Baekhyun does, without even realizing. He doesn’t remember the journey through the maze, except for a confused impression of following flurry phos down paths he can’t seem to recognize, he can’t seem to memorize. Are they familiar? Are they completely new? Oh, Baekhyun doesn’t know.  
  
The only thing he knows is that, at some point, he finds himself standing in front of the entrance of the Daimon’s Pit, where Chanyeol is trapped. HIs legs are shaking, but they still push him forward, inside the room, and Chanyeol feels his presence and he’s at his side before he can even speak.  
  
“Baekhyun,” he says, and that’s all it takes for Baekhyun to collapse. He keels over, hands on the ground, leaning his forehead against the cold stone, and he sobs. Once, twice, taking those breaths that were still trapped at the bottom of his chest, unable to get out, frozen by fear.  
  
He doesn’t close his eyes. If he does, he can still see the thick, meaty hands of the beast, its blood-stained horns, the empty sockets where black orbs must have resided, a long time ago. He can smell the stench of the monster, rancid and bloody, he can hear its call, like a sound standing under the edge between what he can’t and can hear.  
  
Chanyeol’s arms wrap around him, and they’re warm, and Baekhyun hides against Chanyeol’s chest, trying hard not to choke on his own sobs. He doesn’t cry, but he can’t breathe, he feels like there’s not enough air in the world for him.  
  
“You must calm down, Baekhyun, you’re not breathing.”  
  
He can hear some horrible, wet rasps, like of something dying, and then he realizes it’s him, it’s his throat clamping on itself, cutting his air supply, and he almost panics more, but Chanyeol’s hands sneak on his back, slow and reassuring.  
  
“Breathe, Baekhyun, with me, come on. You’re in the middle of a panic attack. There’s nothing wrong with you, you can’t breathe because you’re too scared, so calm down, come on, with me.”  
  
He follows Chanyeol’s voice out of the tunnel of fear his mind created and when he can finally breathe again he sags down in relief.  
  
Chanyeol doesn’t let him go, he stays beside him, murmuring sweet nothings and pressing soft kisses against the crown of Baekhyun’s head until his breathing has normalized and the screaming inside his own mind has subsided, chased away by Chanyeol’s voice.  
  
He’s glad Chanyeol let him take his time, but now that he’s the master of his own mind again he can see how Chanyeol too looks really tense next to him, taking in Baekhyun’s dishevelled state, clothes torn and dirt on his neck, on his forearms and knees, on the bridge of his nose. There’s blood trickling down his neck and calves and forearms from when he scratched his arms before. Chanyeol’s brow furrow and big, worried wrinkles appear on his forehead. Baekhyun wants to smooth them out but when he meets Chanyeol’s eyes he doesn’t dare to move.  
  
Chanyeol is angry. Not simply angry, he’s beyond furious. Baekhyun has never seen him so out of himself in all the years they’ve known each other. No petty fight can compare to this, Chanyeol looks like he wants to kill something, probably Baekhyun. It’s fine, Baekhyun can’t believe he’s been so dumb. He almost killed himself on his own, today.  
  
“I’m sorry,” he says after a while, and Chanyeol flinches.  
  
“Kyungsoo told me everything.”  
  
“Yes, I guessed.”  
  
He looks down. He didn’t lie, but he didn’t tell the truth either. He did something Chanyeol specifically asked him not to do because it was too dangerous and he almost got killed while doing it. He really has no excuses this time.  
  
“You met the beast,” says Chanyeol between his teeth, “the Guardian of the Klæin.”  
  
“I met... something,” he says, “but I’m not sure what it was. It wasn’t a Fury, it was bigger and darker and... It looked like the thing that killed Yoona the day I met you.”  
  
Chanyeol sighs.  
  
“This is why I didn’t want you to go there. Once the Minotaur knows your scent, it will never forget it. It will chase you until you die.”  
  
“The Minotaur? Have you ever met that monster?”  
  
Chanyeol grimaces, a memory resurfacing in his features and for a moment he almost looks like he can catch it. But, as fast as it came, it disappears. “I don’t know if I met the Minotaur, I really can’t remember. But I know what it is. A wicked, pathetic, disgusting creature, the heinous offspring of a human woman and an animal. A beast, born from the hubris of a man who challenged the gods.”  
  
Baekhyun remembers its grotesque body, half-man, half-animal, its foul smell, the inhuman cries it emitted as it chased him.  
  
“Is he… like us? Can he understand our language?”  
  
“The Minotaur is able of rational thoughts, but the beast in that creature is strong, stronger than the man. That’s why the Minotaur can’t control its own self from killing whoever crosses its path.”  
  
“Why is it here?”  
  
“Because even the god who created the Minotaur was ashamed of his creation, so he banished that monster down here and the Unseen gave it a duty. To guard a secret, the most important secret of the maze. You must know what it is, right? That’s what Kyungsoo asked of you.” He grimaces. “I should have known, really. I should have known.”  
  
Baekhyun doesn’t say anything. The inside of his mouth is dry and tastes like dust and blood. He can guess Chanyeol’s question before the other boy can pose it. He’s waiting for it.  
  
“Did you read the Klæin, Baekhyun?”  
  
Baekhyun doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t hesitate.  
  
“I didn’t.”  
  
There’s a pause, a pregnant silence. Chanyeol stares at him, waiting for his eyes to betray the lie, but no silver ripples come to disrupt the moon scythe at the bottom of Baekhyun’s eyes.  
Baekhyun will repeat this same lie to Kyungsoo, just like he said it to Chanyeol, the same lie he said to himself. Maybe, if he repeats it long enough, it might finally become true.  
  
Chanyeol looks down and sighs. “Baekhyun...”  
  
“Do you know what is it? The secret of the Klæin?” he asks, voice thin and tense. Chanyeol doesn’t answer. “You know, right? You know and you won’t tell me. You won’t tell Kyungsoo, you won’t tell anyone.”  
  
“Some secrets must stay just that. Secrets.”  
  
Chanyeol is right, Chanyeol has always been right, since the beginning. Some secrets must never be uncovered. They can only exist as secrets. If you reveal them, if they’re not secrets anymore, what are they? Nothing. They disappear, like a shadow under the bright light. And when a secret is the foundation of an entire world, if that secrets stop being a secret, if that secret disappear... what will happen to the world? Baekhyun doesn’t want to find out.  
  
He never read the Klæin. If he repeats it once more in his head, it might actually become the truth.  


 

~

  
  
  


 

**49**

  
  
The Temple of the Klæin is silent and empty. Baekhyun takes slow, weary steps along the tall marble pillars (a perfect, but smaller replica of the colonnade in the Temple of the Klæin he saw in Oldest-Dakrya.) He supports himself against the body of the column, fighting to regain his breath after he ran here with everything he had in his body.  
  
The moment his hand touches the marble, along lost memory explodes in his mind. For a moment, he’s five years old again, attending a function with his brother and mother. The crowd is chanting hymns to the Unseen, lurking forward at the apex of the ceremony, pushing and pulling until Baekhyun loses his mother’s hand and gets lost among the sea of people. He’s shoved against one of the pillars of the inner colonnade, smothered against the white stone. He looks up and the ceiling looks so tall, far away.When he was a child, Baekhyun used to think that the Temple of the Klæin in Dakrya was the center of the world and that those pillars sustained the ceiling of the Netherworld, keeping the Overworld from collapsing onto his head.  
  
How wrong he was. The Temple of the Klæin doesn’t support anything but itself.  
  
“You finally came.”  
  
The Hiereus doesn’t have a face. Or maybe he does, but Baekhyun has never seen it. He has a mask instead, a silver mask forged in a solemn, severe expression that never fails to make Baekhyun feel like a speck of dust in front of him. But everyone would feel small and insignificant in front of chief of the Temple of the Klæin, the highest Weeper, the only one who can defy the orders of the Despotes. The only one who would be bold enough to try and dethrone a Despotes.  
  
“I was waiting for you,” says the man calmly, conversationally, as if Baekhyun was simply late for a tea and a friendly chat.  
  
Baekhyun joins him in the _naos_ of the Temple, stopping in front of the statue of the Unseen.  
  
“You have a talent for surviving, _pais_ “, the Hiereus says, and he sounds amiable, even when he’s refusing to say Baekhyun’s name, as if to deny his identity, again. “You survived your First Flight, even though those wounds should’ve killed you. You survived ten years in the maze, you even survived your last journey. I am impressed. The Weepers of Pophos received clear instructions to put you down like a dog, and yet... Persistent and useless, like a weed.”  
  
“You have a talent for surviving too.” No honorifics, no deference. No matter how many times he ordered his Weepers to beat Baekhyun, to punish him and throw him in the dungeons, the Hiereus hasn’t managed to make him cower in fear in front of him, not even once. Baekhyun considers it a personal victory. “Tell me, how long have you been alive? Two hundred years? Three? I’ve found the archives of the Temple in the old ruins this city left behind. The documents all carried the same sign. Yours.”  
  
“Ah, the little fledgling has taken a bite of the forbidden fruit and now he thinks he knows how things work down here. I should’ve imagined it. I’m sure you’ve been generously warned against Oldest-Dakrya, but you chose to go there anyway and you read the Klæin. So now you know, about everything.”  
  
Phoi start to fall, like lazy snowflakes, from the ceiling, surrounding the two lonely figures and the titanic statue. Their descent is slow, unhurried, they take their time, almost as if they’re floating, before they dot the ground and disappears, like fireflies in the woods, only to reappear a few metres ahead.  
  
“You are difficult to figure out, _pais_. You are so smart, and then you do the silliest things.” The man sighs. “You shouldn’t have come. You should’ve gone to Apistein, to that rebel queen, and joined her _revolution_ , or whatever she’s doing to keep her power. That’s what we all do. Me, your dear friend the Despotes, the nephew of the Ruler of Pophos… We just want to keep your power.”  
  
Baekhyun is aware of that, but he still would trust both Kyungsoo and Donghae rather than the Hiereus of the Temple of Dakrya.  
  
“But you couldn’t do that, right? You had to come back for him… The demon talked in his sleep, he called your name. He knew you were coming.”  
  
Something clenches in Baekhyun at the mention of Chanyeol.  
  
“You should let him go. You know he doesn’t belong here. He has nothing to do with us,” says Baekhyun, softly.  
  
The Hiereus laughs. “Oh, I know. I know better than you what that boy is. And that’s why I won’t let him go. His place wasn’t here, but he came anyway. And here he will stay, for the rest of time. He will never find who is looking for, but he won’t have you either, because you will already be dead. Well… you have always been dead, I suppose. But you will be gone. Forever. Your eyes cannot lie. The final countdown has started.”  
  
Baekhyun can feel it too, without needing to see it. Power surges in his eyes. He can already see things he couldn’t see before, hear voices that were nothing but muted whispers to him. The phoi talk in a language he still cannot understand, but their voices are becoming clear, like their light, closer and closer. His existence is coming to an end, not slowly, like a bleeding, not cold and lonely. It will end in a storm.  
  
“What will happen to me after I die? Will I become a phos?”  
  
The Klæin, the original Klæin he read years ago in Oldest-Dakrya, said that Harbingers are the only sinners trapped in the Fields of Punishment who have a chance to redeem themselves, to find salvation and redemption. If they sacrifice their existence to save someone else, they can become phoi. And then, they can go to the Elysian Fields.  
  
Except Baekhyun has never wanted salvation, nor redemption. What use would they have for him? _Is my life even worth saving? Can we even call it life, at this point?_ Baekhyun wants the surface, the Overworld, he wants the sun. He wants to believe Chanyeol would’ve really brought him there. He never wanted the Elysian Fields.  
  
“Oh, you will become a phos, I believe. But there will be no salvation for you, _pais_.”  
  
The Hiereus laughs. Baekhyun swallows and it’s all it takes to taste blood in his mouth. Blood also trickles under his black uniform, unseen. The wound left by the Minotaur throbs under his clothes. “I’ve watched you closely for the past ten years, always talking back and looking up with your cursed eyes, always disappearing, always breaking the rules. Do you think I didn’t know it only takes two days to go back and forth between Dakrya and Aganaktein? Less than three for the route between Dakrya and Pophos, but you would always take a minimum of five. I knew you were looking for something, _pais_ , it was so obvious. I knew you would’ve find the first Dakrya, and I knew you would’ve read the Klæin, like others did before you. Like I did before you.”  
  
He extends a hand and wandering phos lands on his palm. With a swift, unforgiving movement, he balls his hand in a fist, crushing the light. In front of Baekhyun’s terrified eyes, the phos dies, with a sizzling sound, like a sharp cry of agony.  
  
“And another little one dies. They should’ve thought twice before entering my barrier, don’t you think?”  
  
“You... you can see the phoi...” mutters Baekhyun.  
  
The Hiereus laughs at Baekhyun’s disconcert.  
  
“Of course I can. I was a Harbinger, a long time ago. The strongest Harbinger, favorite of the phoi, back when Harbingers who couldn’t do their job were still stoned to death, even though we were the only hope of these derelict cities. Oh, it’s all true, there’s no need to make such a distressed face.” He laughs at Baekhyun’s disbelief, the sound coming out horribly distorted because of the mask.  
  
“Why do you think the Temple is in charge of the Harbingers? Who do you think built the other Temples on the Klæin in the cities of the Alliance? Who built the cities themselves? That’s what we’ve always been here for. We were the hands of the Unseen, we were his pillars, his eyes and his mouth. And what did he give us in exchange? Nothing but death. He abandoned us to languish, forever, in this forsaken place, hated by everyone, and he gave us death as the ultimate solution.”  
  
Magic rises around him, growing with his voice, until he surrounds him like a cape. Magic exudes from the building, oozing down the pillars, crashing down in waves at his and the Baekhyun’s feet, licking at his ankles, pulling him towards the Hiereus. He tries to take a step backwards, but he finds out he can’t.  
  
“Why are you doing this?” he asks. “You were one of us...”  
  
“Yes, I was. But after all I did for Dakrya, after everything I went through… Was I really supposed to die?”  
  
“You are already dead!” shouts Baekhyun, and his voice echoes in the temple, rousing the phoi in its wake until they’re filling the darkness with glow. “You have always been dead! This… This is not life, you’re nothing but a vengeful ghosts who refuses to find peace!”  
  
He sees the Hiereus’ rage in the magic swirling around him, but there’s nothing he can do to stop it.  
  
“How dare you!” The voice of the Hiereus fills the room while a wave of magic crashes against Baekhyun, slamming him against the floor, blinding him for a moment. “I should have gotten rid of you the day you came back from your First Flight, cursed two times.”  
  
He kicks Baekhyun, hard, in his sides, where it hurts the most, again and again, and the boy can do nothing but groan, helpless, black dots closing in front of him as he struggles to stay awake.  
  
“Yes, I hate Harbingers. I hate you all, because you made a choice that I could never make. So now, since you like secrets so much, let me tell you another secret.”  
  
The man kneels down, takes Baekhyun by the hair and tilts his head so that the boy is looking at him. “Your sacrifice and the sacrifice of all your dear friends will be useless, you know why? Because the only way for a phos to go to the Elysian Fields is to be remembered and honored by the people they left behind when they were Harbingers. But isn’t it unfair, that someone can go to the Elysian Fields while I can’t? That’s why I came back to Temple and I stole the secrets of the Klæin right under the snoot of the Minotaur. Did you know? And then I came back and with the magic of the Klæin I took away his eyes. I entered the Temple as the only person able to create a barrier, I became the Hiereus and the first thing I did was to forbid the names of deceased Harbingers. They were never to be pronounced again.”  
  
The Hiereus lets him go and he collapses on the floor. Wetness spreads on his chest, blood soaking the bandages. “That’s why there are so many phoi. They amass there, in the maze, lost souls who can only help other Harbinger in need, with no memories of their previous life, doomed to the darkness of the maze forever.”  
  
Baekhyun chokes. The phoi reel over him. _Just give up, nothing will happen to you,_ they say, and now, now of all times, now Baekhyun can finally hear their voice. Their voices. _This is your destiny, Baekhyun. Don’t be afraid._  
  
“I think this is the end, _pais_. You have lived a miserable life and you will have a miserable death. No one will ever remember your name.”  
  
“Mph.” It starts with a scoff, then it evolves in a full-fledged laughter that wrecks him from the inside. He feel the fabric of his tunic sticking uncomfortably to the wound the Minotaur has left, now bleeding profusely again.  
  
Baekhyun has never really feared the Hiereus. He thought he was a tiny, angry man and in the end it’s even worse, but Baekhyun doesn’t fear him. There’s no need to fear him.  
  
The Hiereus stops at the entrance of the Temple, his figure black against the light of the phoi.  
“What are you laughing about?”  
  
“You. You’re a pathetic, little man. And you’ve failed, everything you did, everything you tried to do. It’s all going to crumble down like a paper castle. Because of me.”  
  
He thinks of the names of the Harbingers he’s never forgotten, and how there are people who will care about him and remember his name. He thinks about Kyungsoo, who’s been warned of Baekhyun’s plan and is collecting his army in a last, desperate attempt to save the city and the people living within it. He thinks about Chanyeol, how he made things brilliant and warm, how he played for Baekhyun for hours and tried to teach him how to play the lyre, failing miserably. He thinks about the phoi. They’re singing, now, and if he listens well, he can almost hear voices he knows, Hyuna and his brother, Kikwang, Myungsoo, Seulgi. Baekhyun is, has always been, and always will be, thankful. Just like he asked, they have stayed close to him, until the end. They didn’t leave him alone.  
  
_It’s coming,_ they’re saying, _you did it, Baekhyun._  
  
Baekhyun can hear it too. Like an earthquake, but too rhythmic to be an earthquake. It resounds in the whole Dakrya, the only sound breaking the silence of the city. The war is already over.  
  
Boom.  
  
Boom.  
  
_Boom._  
  
“Fool! What did you do?” shouts the Hiereus taking a step back to run away, but it’s too late.  
  
The Minotaur enters the Temple of the Klæin, following the trail of Baekhyun’s blood, a trail Baekhyun has carefully left behind himself, drop after drop of blood, like an invisible mark branding the streets, in order to lead the Minotaur exactly to where Baekhyun is standing. In the _naos_ of the Temple of the Klæin under the Agorà.  
  
The Minotaur stops, confused as to where he is. It’s probably the first for him to enter in one of the Buried Cities. It stops, to sniff the air until it recognizes another scent. The scent of the man who took away its eyes. But it’s different now, hundreds of years have passed. The Minotaur doesn’t change, it doesn’t grow old, but the Hiereus did. The Hiereus is old and fragile, shriveled and wrinkled like old parchment, like a cloth too worn out, stretched too thin, ready to snap.  
  
There’s a moment in which not even the mask the Hiereus is wearing can cover his fear. Chanyeol was right. After the Minotaur smells your blood, there’s no coming back. He’ll hold a grudge against you forever. It doesn’t really matter, not to Baekhyun, because his forever ends here, today. But not at the claws and horns of the Minotaur, _no_.  
  
In front of him, the monster charges and the Hiereus keels over like a broken doll with an empty, dull shout of pain. The Minotaur doesn’t stop there. It keeps charging and charging until the only thing left of the Hiereus is a silver mask lying on the floor on a puddle of blood. Baekhyun collects the heavy key ring that belonged to the former Hiereus from the floor, picks himself up and leaves, to find Chanyeol.  


 

~

  
  
  


 

**23**

  
  
Baekhyun’s life doesn’t change after he reads the Klæin.  
  
(Nothing can really change in the maze, after all.)  
  
Baekhyun still wakes up, wears his black and silver uniform, slips his worn out messenger bag on his shoulder and leaves Dakrya to carry letters to faraway cities, again, and again, and _again_.  
  
Baekhyun’s life doesn’t change, but Baekhyun does. He stops looking. He never even knew what he was looking for, but he doesn’t need to know the question when he’s already found out the answer.  
  
He visits Kyungsoo, sometimes, but they don’t really talk much nowadays, not after Baekhyun told him he was very sorry, but he hadn’t been able to find the Klæin.  
  
Kyungsoo stared at him for a long time, looking for the signs of a lie in his eyes, in the tremor of his hands, the tension in his shoulder, a tormented, bitten lip. Just like Chanyeol before him, he found nothing.  
  
He expects Kyungsoo to stop him from seeing Chanyeol again since he failed his mission, but the other boy never does, which only means Chanyeol gave him something else to chew on rather than Baekhyun’s life. (Probably his own.) He could march to Chanyeol’s cell and demand to know the truth, but he doesn’t. He’s too tired to fight. He’s too tired to lie again. There is space in him for only one secret, hidden somewhere inside his ribcage, chained to his heart. If Baekhyun had a key, he’d throw it away, but he can only keep his mouth shut and swallow his secrets.  
  
Around him, Dakrya languishes. The stocks of _koal_ are ending. The mines are empty, their veins cold and dry. The Hiereus looks at Baekhyun behind his golden mask and doesn’t say anything. Kyungsoo looks at Baekhyun, his lips drawn in a tight line, and doesn’t say anything. The world takes a long breath.  
  
Chanyeol kisses Baekhyun. On the mouth, on his neck, on his closed eyelids. He takes his hands and maps the lines of his palm, fills the space between Baekhyun’s fingers with his own.  
  
“One day,” he says, “I will take you away. To the Overworld. We’ll watch the sunrise together.”  
  
Baekhyun lets him talk. Sometimes, he believes him. Other times, he doesn’t.  
  
When he walks in the maze, the phoi fly around his neck like a silver ribbon, a silver chain. They call him, constantly. They don’t use words, but he can hear their murmurs, their whispers. They’re talking about him, waiting for him to join them.  
  
“Just another day,” he begs. “And then another, and another, and another. Let me stay alive. Let me stay.” With Chanyeol. Just another day.  
  
They swirl in front of his face, a flock of little stars. He knows why they’re worried. According to what he read in the Klæin, he needs to hurry. If he doesn’t find a way to do a good deed, if he doesn’t sacrifice his life before the moon scythe in his eyes turn into a complete circle, he will not be able to save his soul. He will not become a phoi and, eventually, he will never be able to go to the Elysian Fields. He will stay, like a troubled soul, like a ghost of pain and regret, in the maze, forever. He will become a whisper in the dark, a cold shiver on someone’s back, a Fury even, if he’s strong enough and his resentment is too big.  
  
_What is the point of holding onto this life,_ the phoi seem to say, _if it’s not even life? Just let go, let’s go. Together. To the Elysian Fields._  
  
“But how can it be a sacrifice,” he asks, to a silent maze and a flurry of sad lights, “if I already know I’m dead? Isn’t that cheating? Wouldn’t that salvation be undeserved?”  
  
The point is, Baekhyun doesn’t want the Elysian Fields. He doesn’t want salvation. He just wants Chanyeol to stay, stay, stay with him, until their time together is over. He will disappear then, quietly, if the Unseen decides he really doesn’t deserve the Elysian Fields.  
  
“Let me greedy,” he says, collecting drops of light on his fingers. “Let me have this. I will let go when I’m ready, I promise.”  
  
Is it really life, if Baekhyun already knows he’s dead? Is it love, if Chanyeol probably knows it too? Baekhyun decides he doesn’t care if it’s borrowed time or stolen time, he will stay with Chanyeol as long as he can, as long as Chanyeol wants him.  
  
  
  
_Death has a look for everyone.  
Death will come and will have your eyes.  
It will be like renouncing a vice,  
like seeing a dead face  
re-emerge in the mirror,  
like listening to a lip that’s shut.  
We’ll go down into the maelstrom mute._  
  
Verrà la morte e avrà i tuoi occhi  
— Cesare Pavese  
  
  



	6. v: end / τέλος

_Let us pray for the foxes sleeping in your knees.  
May you always know when to run.  
  
Let us pray for your head hitting the pillow, for your mouth when it whispers  
“Enough. Enough of that now.”  
  
O, pain.  
O, it is no small thing, with its chariots and its kingdoms built on the backs of the suffering.  
May you walk straight again in the free land.  
  
When the light comes,  
may you wear the morning well.  
May you always keep part of it in your hands.  
  
Let us pray for the courage roaring  
in your colosseum chest,  
that it stays hungry and that it wins._  
  
  
  


v: end / τέλος

  
  
  
  


**51**

  
  
The maze quivers, cold air blowing through Baekhyun’s hair as he walks into the darkness, the ground rumbling under his feet. He takes a few halting steps on the still trembling ground, holding onto the walls to keep his balance, and listens to the sound of the world changing.  
  
Dakrya – the millennial city, the eternal city, the city where everything began – is falling. Gone is the Beacon, gone is the Temple, and the Agorà is a broken battlefield, cracked and splintered, lying open and bare where the explosions of the magic fires have scratched the stone away. Only the dying embers of the barriers, ashes of magic, float around, lazy, untouched by the ruin unfolding around them. Soon enough, Furies will roam the city, lured in by the smell of death, like scavengers in a graveyard. Baekhyun has opened the doors of the city to the maze and the maze has won.  
  
The maze has won this battle, but the Despotes will find a way to save his people because that’s how things are supposed to be. The city will survive. It will move, again, deeper and deeper, following the Black, following the _koal_ , following the will of the Unseen. Dakrya is, after all, eternal.  
  
_See, Kyungsoo, you wanted to move the city and I gave you the perfect chance to do it. I even got rid of the Temple of the Klæin for you. No more religion. No more lies. My job here is done._  
  
His debt with Kyungsoo has been paid. And he knows Chanyeol’s deal with Kyungsoo must be off too. After all, all Chanyeol asked for was Baekhyun’s safety, but Baekhyun is slowly bleeding out on the ground on his way towards the detention halls. The Despotes cannot claim any right over Chanyeol either, not anymore.  
  
_Let us go. Our time here is ending._  
  
The set of keys that once belonged to the Hiereus hangs from Baekhyun’s fingers, still dripping the blood of its previous master on the alabaster floor as the boy quickly runs down wide halls and narrow sets of stairs. Baekhyun’s hands are sticky with it, but when he tries to wipe them on his clothes to clean them, more blood – fresh blood, his own blood – smear on his palms. He curses, caution forgotten. No one can punish him anymore, really, so he curses the gods, without regrets.  
  
All around him, the Temple teeters on the edge of falling apart. The Minotaur has destroyed the pillars in the main structure, making the entablature crash over the statue of the Unseen, and now, like the tiles of a domino, all the levels underneath are collapsing, toppling one on top of the other, crushing everything in their wake, dragging the entire city down with them.  
  
Baekhyun runs against time in the labyrinthine dungeons of the temple, sliding down old, unused chutes, secondary exits, secret passages and shortcuts he’s known for his whole life, feeling the whole structure give up around him as he goes on and on, running ahead, without ever stopping. Isn’t this what he has done his whole life? Despite the wounds, despite the dear, despite the world ending around him. His body hurts, joints snapping, muscles wailing in agony, his lungs bursting with fatigue, but he doesn’t let it give up. _Come on, this is the last run, don’t fail me now._  
  
He crashes against a Weeper and his body tenses, instinctively getting ready to fight, but the man screams and runs away without bothering Baekhyun. There’s no time for fighting, not anymore. He stumbles upon other Weepers as he runs, their masks gone, their tunics dirty and their faces contorted in fear. None of them try to stop him, too engrossed in their personal race towards safety. Baekhyun knows they will all meet their end today. It’s useless to climb upwards when the temple is already folded on itself, crumbling and collapsing. The only solution is to go deeper and deeper, outrunning the ruin of the entire city in the bowels of the earth.  
  
_This way,_ whisper the phoi, _come on, he’s waiting._  
  
And now Baekhyun recognizes some of their voices. They raise over the chorus, from that skein of voice all knotted together so tightly that for a moment they sound like one, only to disentangle a moment later, silver threads Baekhyun can pick up in his mind, every one with its own voice. They belong to kids that he once knew, people who slept next to him in the bunks of a temple, shared his meals, told him the secrets of their route. They died, and Baekhyun knows their names.  
  
There are things Baekhyun has always wanted to ask them. About the maze, about the Furies, about the world seen from the eyes of a speck of light. He wanted to ask if it hurts, when you die, but he doesn’t need to now. He’s dying. Again. He doesn’t know whether it hurt the first time. This time, it hurts.  
  
Another door, another set of stairs, closer and closer, following invisible lights, the keys heavy in his hands.  
  
Baekhyun remembers one of the first conversations he had with Chanyeol, back when they first met, when the chains curling around Chanyeol’s feet and the shackles biting on his wrists and ankles were made of gold, branded with the seal of Kyungsoo’s father. Chanyeol had asked him to steal the keys of his chains for him. It had been a joke, but Baekhyun hadn’t laughed. He would’ve done it, if only he had known how.  
  
Back then, he didn’t know that almost ten years later he would’ve really done it. Today Baekhyun feels like he’s lived too much, like it’s not been ten years, but ten thousand. He lived enough to cause the Hiereus’ death and steal his keys. He lived enough to save Chanyeol’s life, just like Chanyeol saved his own, a long time ago.  
  
The stone around him gives up with an agonizing, gut-wrenching creak. The Temple is nestled too deep, buried too far in the belly of the earth, rooted in its precious core, that it’s become part of it and it’s impossible now for one to fall without hurting the other. The earth too is suffering, screaming in pain. But wouldn’t this be for a greater good? To cut an infected limb to prevent the infection from spreading to the whole body? The earth will survive without the Temple of the Klæin, just like Dakrya will.  
  
Baekhyun finally stops at the entrance of the detention halls. Above him, with another deafening crash, another level gives up. The tiles fall and the world changes.  
  
His fingers slip around the keys. He tries them on, one after another, stupidly despairing to find the right one. The key ring falls twice from his jittery hands before he can finally pick it up and twist the last key left in the hole, praying silently that he works. If he doesn’t, he doesn’t know what he will do.  
  
He hears the click of the lock inside the keyhole and his own blood pounding in his ears and then the door swings open on its own, hitting Baekhyun in the forehead. Stars of pain explode in his temple and he trips and falls into the ground. Or maybe not, maybe he’s pushed into it and it’s just adding pain to the pain now, the impact with the cold floor unforgiving on his back. He tries to whine, but there’s not enough air for him to do it, because a warm hand closes around his throat. He thrashes around it, for a moment, but then the weight pulling him down his lifted while a worried voice calls him from above.  
  
“Baekhyun!”  
  
Oh, Chanyeol’s voice. He wants to release some kind of caustic statement, like _thank you for trying to kill me_ or _I didn’t expect such a welcome_ , or even _this is what I get for coming down to save your sorry ass,_ but the words don’t come out. Instead, blood spurts out of his mouth, staining his chin and neck and Chanyeol’s hands.  
  
“Baekhyun, Baekhyun, Baekhyun.” Chanyeol chants his name like a magic spell, and Baekhyun smiles, although faintly. “Surprise,” he croaks, licking the ferrous taste of blood from his lips and the inside of his mouth as he speaks.  
  
Chanyeol’s face comes into focus slowly, emerging from the darkness like a pointillist painting. He looks miserable and hopeful at the same time. “They told me you were dead.”  
  
_Did you believe them? Silly, silly Chanyeol. I can’t die without seeing you one last time…_  
  
“Not yet, but it won’t be long. Take me away?”  
  
They don’t really have time to spare, not with the impending doom coming upon them. Baekhyun tries to get up and finds out he can’t. He uselessly wishes for his limbs to move but the most he can muster is a soft twitch of his fingers. Everything feels so cold. Chanyeol’s hand falls from his throat to his neck and down his chest, leaving trails of hellfire in its wake. They linger on the wet patches of blood drenching Baekhyun’s Harbinger uniform. He sucks in a sharp breath, eyes flaring, and Baekhyun knows he’s angry, and bitter, and out of his mind with worry, but the hand that moves the sweaty hear matted to his forehead to the side to sweep on his temple is nothing but gentle.  
  
“I can show you the way,” he murmurs, but Chanyeol shushes him.  
  
“There’s no need to.” With an imperious gesture, the phoi flock to him.  
  
_Welcome back, Prince of the Netherworld,_ they say, and Baekhyun wants to laugh because, of course. _Of course._  
  
Chanyeol doesn’t say anything. He helps Baekhyun up, lifting him like he was a paper doll, like the paper dancers in Baekhyun’s mother’s fairytales. Except Chanyeol is not a tin soldier. Chanyeol is the fire, he’s always been the fire.  
  
“Come on,” he says. “Let’s go.”  
  


~

  
  
  
  


**52**

  
  
Baekhyun doesn’t remember how it happens. He doesn’t even remembers it happening. He closes his eyes, just for a moment – he’s so tired – and he falls, like Icarus, his silver wings gone. Chanyeol catches him at the last moment.  
  
He comes to his senses to Chanyeol’s hands cutting his uniform away with Baekhyun’s dagger, murmuring soft words, curses and terms of endearment. “Stupid, stupid Baekhyun, hold on, hold on, don’t leave me here, don’t leave,” he murmurs, and Baekhyun doesn’t want to leave but he doesn’t know how to stay.  
  
Chanyeol lies him down, slowly and gently, on the ground. In the background, Baekhyun can faintly hear the sound of Dakrya falling to pieces, the stone around them echoing the quakes and the crashes of the city not too far away. At least, while he was unconscious, Chanyeol managed to get both of them away safely.  
  
Chanyeol pays no mind to what happens around them. He leans over Baekhyun and pushes the torn shreds of bloody fabric away to press his hands on Baekhyun’s abdomen. Warmth fills Baekhyun’s body, working its way from the edge of the open wounds, where the horns of the Minotaur have mauled the flesh, expanding towards his core like a pour of hot honey. He seizures, for a moment, and Chanyeol catches him in his arms to keep him from shaking, lulling him back and forth until Baekhyun’s body has relaxed again.  
  
“What did... what did you do to me?” he asks, when he can speak again.  
  
“I’m merely giving you more time,” is Chanyeol’s only reply.  
  
When Baekhyun looks down, the wound is still there, obscenely wide and grotesque, but it glows, like silver, like the scars on Baekhyun’s back.  
  
“I already did it once, when you were younger, and that’s why I’m not sure it will work again. It’s only temporary, and that’s why we must run. We need to reach the Overworld before...” he lets his words trail away, but he takes Baekhyun’s hand and pushes him up to his feet again.  
  
“Who are you?” asks Baekhyun. “Why can you do this?”  
  
“We have no time, Baekhyun!” he protests, and it’s true. They’ve had so much time, ten years of it, and Baekhyun has wasted it all. He’s never asked the real question.  
  
“I might not get another chance to ask.”  
  
“That’s why we have to hurry!” he says, but Baekhyun refuses to move from his spot until he receive an answer and Chanyeol can only groan, defeated. “I don’t know why or how I can do this. But I can do it.”  
  
Lies. Nothing more than lies. Baekhyun is tired of them. He’s tired of everything. Despite Chanyeol’s magic, the wounds on his chest and back still hurt, a dull, numbing kind of pain. He wants to lie down and sleep forever.  
  
“The phoi call you Prince,” he mutters.  
  
“Maybe I am, but… It doesn’t really matter who I am. The only thing that matters is what I’m looking for.”  
  
And what is it, that Chanyeol is looking for?  
  
“In this world, everything has a price, and this was mine. To enter the Netherworld, I had to bathe in the eyes of the River Lethe and lose all my memories.”  
  
“Then how do you know I’m the right person?” asks Baekhyun, because he knows Chanyeol is his person, he’s known since their first meeting, but how can Chanyeol be sure?  
  
“I can’t,” he answers, simply. “But I love you. Isn’t that enough?”  
  
“But I am already dead,” he says, and the world stops. “Am I not?”  
  
Chanyeol turns to look at him, at a loss of words. Finally, after all this time, Baekhyun has found a way to leave him speechless. Baekhyun, one, Chanyeol – well, he doesn’t know how many arguments Chanyeol has won against him until now, but there’s a first time for everything, even if apparently this first time coincides with the end of the world.  
  
“How long have you known?” asks Chanyeol. His shoulder slump down, defeated.  
  
“I have read the Klæin, after all. But that’s not how I knew, to be honest.”  
  
“And how did you know?”  
  
“Since the day I met you, probably. Since the moment you touched me and I realized I was cold, that I had been cold my whole life in the Netherworld, and I only knew warmth because I felt it through your hands. I should’ve been crazy not to see that you’re not like me Chanyeol. I am, after all, only a ghost.”  
  
It took years for Baekhyun to realize what the difference between him and Chanyeol meant. It was just the shadow of a doubt at first, unpredictable and almost invisible in the darkness looming around Baekhyun. He tried to deny it, he tried to ignore it, but reading the Klæin was only the final confirmation of something Baekhyun already knew. That he and Chanyeol were not parallel lines, but transversals, destined to meet only once, only for a moment, in a random point of an infinite space. And, for that moment, the space between them would be just a lick of breath, and then nothing, and then it would go back to being wider than the entire universe. This is that moment, the moment Chanyeol touches him, two different worlds colliding, and Baekhyun would be swept away by the explosion but he’s not consistent enough for it. All the past ten years have been that moment, and now Baekhyun is afraid they will have to say goodbye, to go to the opposite corners of the universe, to never see each other again. And he’s scared.  
  
Chanyeol links their fingers together. “You’re not a ghost. You’re not a corpse either. This... universe... exists on a parallel plane.”  
  
“Is it real?”  
  
“It is not the world of the living, but that doesn’t make it less real.”  
  
He holds Baekhyun’s hand, feeling every bump, every scratch, every scar, slowly and deliberately. “This is real. I am touching you. Even if we are different, we are both real Baekhyun. Can you feel your hand in mine? Can you feel my pulse under your fingers? Can you feel the way your heart beats, like a scaredy bird in a cage? Because I can, Baekhyun. If the world stops spinning and you listen close enough, you could hear the sound of mine.”  
  
He takes Baekhyun’s hand to his chest and Baekhyun doesn’t need the world to stop spinning to feel Chanyeol’s heartbeat.  
  
There’s a question Baekhyun wants to ask. He’s spent the past ten years thinking about what it is. He’s found all kind of answers, but they were all wrong, because they never fit his question. He doesn’t know if he’s found it, the right one, but he will ask it all the same, right now, because if he and Chanyeol are transversal lines, this is the moment they meet for the first time and last time, before parting ways forever.  
  
“Can you still really love me, even if I’m already dead?”  
  
_Do you know, Chanyeol, that there’s a gaping chasm between us? Can you still love me, even if we’ll never be able to be together under the sun, even if our love will end here, in the darkness, because this is the only place for people like me, can you..._  
  
Chanyeol closes the distance between them. He doesn’t kiss Baekhyun. He doesn’t hold him. He bends down, leaning his forehead against Baekhyun’s. He closes his eyes.  
  
“You’re so stupid,” he murmurs, and even his voice is smiling. “Watch me, Baekhyun, because today I’m going to bend every rule of this world and bring you back with me.”  
  


~

  
  
  
  


**53**

  
  
They watch Dakrya fall into the maelstrom, disappearing into the darkness for the last time. Baekhyun doesn’t cry. Maybe he should. That city was his home. It was dark and cold, it was full of lies and dangers and dirty and hopeless sometimes, but it still was Baekhyun’s home.  
  
Chanyeol’s hand lingers on Baekhyun’s side, a steady, solid presence, reminding him that he’s not alone.  
  
“What are those?” asks Baekhyun suddenly. From above, they can see little lights fluttering in the darkness like candles in the wind.  
  
“Magic fires,” replies Chanyeol. “They don’t have many left, but what they have will be enough, at least until they can set another barrier.”  
  
“What are you talking about?”  
  
“You’re not the only one who spent the last few years working for Kyungsoo, you know? He asked me to help him find a safe place to move the city even before he asked you to find the Klæin for him. In hindsight, he probably knew this was going to happen.”  
  
“And you helped him?”  
  
“I didn’t want to. I don’t think I was supposed to, but then you came back from Oldest-Dakrya.” Baekhyun looks down, remembering how stupid he had been, how he had collapsed in front of Chanyeol, after being chased by the Minotaur for hours. How worried Chanyeol had been.  
  
“Is that why Kyungsoo stopped giving me dangerous missions? I didn’t know anything about his business with Donghae, nor about those illegal Harbinger they were using to exchange messages.”  
  
“I asked him to keep you safe and he did, the best he could. And I gave him a new city, the best I could. Now everything is in their hands.”  
  
“What will happen to them?” How long will they survive in the maze with the only help of dim magic fires and their own free will? And what will the maze ask from them? There are rules. For every person who steps in the maze, the maze itself demands a payment, like a sacrifice. Who will be sacrificed to make these people survive?  
  
He asks Chanyeol and the boy shrugs. “The Hiereus maybe. His disciples. All the Weepers of the Temple. The list is long and most of them have already died. We can only hope they were the last. Kyungsoo already knows how to set a barrier. As long as he leads them, they’ll survive.”  
  
He doesn’t want to ask, but the words slip out of his mouth. “Wouldn’t Kyungsoo feel bad if you leave without saying goodbye?”  
  
“As much as I endured Kyungsoo’s presence during the last years,” answers Chanyeol, and there’s an edge in his voice that wasn’t there before, “he is still someone who kept me in chain for the last ten years. I don’t know if he deserves a goodbye, but I’m not coming back down there just to give him one.”  
  
“He really liked you, you know? I used to be so jealous, because he could keep you all for himself.”  
  
Chanyeol snorts. “He liked me, really? I think you might have misunderstood something about our dear Despotes. You can’t even imagine how many times he came to my cell specifically to complain about you and how infuriating you could be, how annoying you could be, how stupid you could be… It’s like he wanted to brag about all the time you spent together.”  
  
Baekhyun’s laugh is so weak and faint Chanyeol almost misses it. “Kyungsoo, really? Were you… were you jealous?”  
  
Chanyeol pouts. “I seriously wanted to hit him more times than I can count and I’m just so _glad_ we’re leaving him and his power games and his revolutions behind.”  
  
Baekhyun doesn’t care about his revolution either. But he cares about Kyungsoo.  
  
“Not only him. The whole city. Will they be alright?”  
  
Chanyeol purses his lips. “That’s in the hands of the Unseen, don’t you think?”  
  
A little phos is stuck on his hair and Baekhyun wants nothing more than to reach out and free it. Nothing can stop him, so he does it.  
  
“The people of Dakrya… Were they evil? During their life?” he asks, as the little light he has just freed tumbles all over their heads. He thinks about all the people he has met in his life. His mother, his brother, his neighbors, all the children he played with in the old mines. Guards, Weepers, forgers and artisans, the people who worked in the greenhouses, the miners who extracted the _koal_ for the magic fires, the healers, the sweepers, the rulers. Sehun and Kyungsoo. The Harbingers. Like tarot cards spread in front of him, waiting only to be read. “Is that why they were here, with us? Because they needed to be punished?”  
  
“Maybe,” only says Chanyeol, laconic.  
  
And what about Baekhyun? Did he also need to be punished? Was his crime lighter than Kyungsoo’s crime, for him to be a Harbinger in this world? Was Kyungsoo’s crime lighter than a miner’s crime, for him to be a Despotes in this world? Or maybe not, maybe it was heavier.  
  
“Don’t you feel bad for them?” he asks.  
  
“As much as I do, there are battles you can fight and battles you can’t fight. Rules exist for a reason, Baekhyun.”  
  
None of them mentions that Chanyeol is willing to break those same rules to save Baekhyun, there’s no need to.  
  
  


~

  
  
  
  


**54**

  
  
  
Baekhyun had always thought that the way to the Overworld would be upwards, higher and higher, an ascension. He’s looked for it, in the ten years he’s been a Harbinger, exploring every crevice, every corner, every turn and every nest of Furies he tripped on, but he never managed to find it. He’s not sure he can find it today either.  
  
“You were just looking in the wrong place,” says Chanyeol. His hand is warm around Baekhyun’s, even though Baekhyun can feel his own turn colder and colder. His blood pushes against Chanyeol’s silver spell. He wants to be free, to spill in the cold stone and on Baekhyun’s chest.  
  
“Isn’t the surface above us?” he asks, to distract himself from the notion that he’s dying, he’s slowly, inexorably dying. He’s already dead, and yet he can’t stop himself from dying again.  
  
“In a way it is, but not in the way you mean.”  
  
“In which way then?”  
  
“The Netherworld is specular to the Overworld and in both worlds the border is in the deepest point possible. To find the River Styx, we will have to go even deeper.”  
  
Beyond the Frozen Pass, beyond the River Lethe, that’s where the border between the two world is. A river, Chanyeol says, a river of memories. If you bathe in it, you will lose yourself, you will come out clean, pure, ready to live again with a new identity, a new life. But Baekhyun is already lost and sometimes he thinks Chanyeol is lost too.  
  
“What will happen to us when we cross the river?”  
  
“We will recover all our memories, everything.”  
  
But what if I’m not the right person, wants to ask Baekhyun. What if you open your eyes and you regret having chosen me. What if it’s all a mistake and I shouldn’t be here, what if… He coughs, and when he takes his hand to his sternum, trying to stabilize his breath, he takes it back all wet and red. The wound is reopening, despite Chanyeol’s magic, and the River Lethe is far, too far away. Baekhyun is not sure they will make it and, judging from Chanyeol’s face, he’s not sure either.  
  
Baekhyun follows their travel in the map of his mind, trying to calculate how many steps he has left before he dies.  
  
“I won’t let you die,” said Chanyeol. “I’ll do everything in my power to keep you.”  
  
Baekhyun is glad he didn’t answer. It’s not that he doesn’t believe Chanyeol, it’s just that... It’s only fair, isn’t it? The maze has rules, and it doesn’t matter if Chanyeol is going to break and bend all of them just for Baekhyun’s sake. Baekhyun will follow them, if it means he can save the one he loves.  
  
A life for a life, that’s how it works, The thing Baekhyun wanted the most was Chanyeol, so much that he was willing to let everyone else die, out of greed, out of selfishness, out of foolish love, just so that he could stay with Chanyeol one more day, but isn’t that ironic that in the end what ended his life was his wish to save Chanyeol’s? If that’s the price to pay for Chanyeol to go back to his world of sun and warmth, Baekhyun is willing to pay it. No changes of hearts, no regrets.  
  
The wounds in his abdomen throb. A dull, cold ache is spreading from them, slowly overtaking the warmth of whatever magic Chanyeol used on him. He winces and hopes Chanyeol doesn’t realize the spell is wearing off, not only in the wounds on his chest, but in the wounds of his back too. They take his breath away. He opens his mouth to call Chanyeol, but the only thing that comes out is a confused gurgle, easily overpowered by Chanyeol’s voice.  
  
“That’s it, Baekhyun, that’s the River Lethe! We found it!”  
  
At this point, Chanyeol’s hand around his wrist is the only thing holding Baekhyun up on his feet. He staggers, struggling to stay awake and follow Chanyeol until they’ve reached the shores of a a milky, foggy river.  
  
Chanyeol stops. “Baekhyun, do you trust me?”  
  
What a stupid question. Baekhyun would follow Chanyeol to the end of the world.  
  
“This is it, the Lethe, the river of memories. Once we cross it, we’ll regain our memories. There’s no turning back now. You must cross the river, Baekhyun.”  
  
A river? It’s this the final obstacle before the Overworld? A simple river?  
  
“Follow me.”  
  
Baekhyun looks at the river through the dizziness of his own mind. If he squints hard enough, he can see images among the fog rising from the river. He can see… His head hurts, as if cut in half by a stinging pain. He tries to give a shape to the things he’s seeing but they’re too fast for him, too vivid, too colorful. Too alive.  
  
“There are things… in the water…”  
  
The Lethe is not only a river. It’s an entire world, taken out from dead people’s mind, a world made of stolen memories and lost opportunities. Regrets. Remorse. Chanyeol pushes Baekhyun forward until the river is licking at his ankles and it burns. _It burns._  
  
It burns like being in two places at the same time, like an entire world is flowing through your soul, like the edge between light and shadow, life and death, Baekhyun and Chanyeol. Baekhyun screams, terrified, and takes a step back. Is that the real world? Is that what is waiting for him on the other side. Oh no. Oh, no. No no no. It’s too strong, too bright, too loud. It’s too much for Baekhyun, whose existence is so thin he can only hope to exist in a world made of paper. A paper castle and a paper doll and a paper labyrinth, ready to burn at the first touch with a flame.  
  
“Chanyeol, we can’t… I can’t…” he murmurs, but Chanyeol has already stepped into the river. He stops, when he hears Baekhyun’s plea, the set of his shoulders rigid and tense. It’s almost as if he’s struggling to stay still, to not give in and chase the sound of Baekhyun’s voice. But Baekhyun is terrified, he’s shaking, he doesn’t know what to do. Baekhyun is dead, and the dead can’t cross this river. “Chanyeol! Chanyeol, please, I can’t. I can’t do this alone. You have to help me. Look at me, please.”  
  
Chanyeol doesn’t turn back. He looks like he wants to, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t answer Baekhyun, either. He plucks the strings of the lyre once, twice, experimentally, the sound crystalline and unexpectedly bright in the darkness of the maze.  
  
“I can lead you home,” he says, softly, “but you have to follow me, alright?”  
  
Chanyeol takes a deep breath, plucks the strings of the lyre and sings a song about flowers. And Baekhyun is a lost, lost soul, his memories burn, his entire existence has already burned out, but Chanyeol… Oh, he’s already followed Chanyeol to the end of the world – he made his entire world end just to save Chanyeol. One more step, only another step.  
  
Baekhyun closes his eyes and jumps in the scalding, swirling waters of the River Lethe, following the sound of Chanyeol’s lyre.  
  
_Let us pray.  
For your blessed bones.  
For your sacred hands.  
May you learn to love what is holy in you.  
May you learn to love what is not.  
  
To the ones that have not loved you like you deserve,  
may you forget their names.  
May you remember your own, always.  
Amen. Amen._  
  
A Prayer  
— Caitlyn Siehl,  
  
  



	7. epilogue: beginning / ἀρχή

_You are the earth and death.  
Your season is darkness  
and silence. Nothing  
alive is more remote  
from dawn than you._  
  
  


epilogue: beginning / ἀρχή

  
  
  


**00**

  
  
Despite being a son of Apollo, Baekhyun never learns how to play the lyre, and he can only watch, in envy, as his father praises all his brothers and sisters and lets them take the reins of his golden chariot for a few minutes, a privilege Baekhyun was never granted.  
  
Despite being a son of Hades, Chanyeol plays the lyre like he was born to do it, long fingers stringing delicately against the chords as he sits on top of a boulder at the shores of River Styx. He raises his eyes and smirks at Baekhyun, “Yo, son of Apollo. I guess you came here for a quest. My old man said you would be coming.”  
  
He jumps down and Baekhyun grimaces. He doesn’t like people who can play the lyre well. He likes people who only call him _son of Apollo_ even less.  
  
“So, I guess this is the moment I kick your ass and you give me back the Golden Apple, right?” he asks, feigning boredom.  
  
Chanyeol’s smirk has dimples and there’s hellfire in his eyes. The lyre falls on the ground when he unsheathes his sword. Baekhyun’s dagger is already in his hands.  
  
Chanyeol sighs. “A son of Apollo, what were they thinking? They should’ve sent me a son of Zeus, or Poseidon. Maybe even a son of Are-”  
  
He can’t even finish the sentence. He finds himself lying on the ash-grey sand, Baekhyun’s dagger at his neck.  
  
Despite being the son of Apollo, Baekhyun never learns how to play the lyre. On the other hand, with a dagger in his hands, he’s kind of unstoppable.  
  
“Wow, that was... good,” murmurs the boy lying under him.  
  
“Well, thank you. You’re not too bad when you’re lying on your back.”  
  
His words are followed by a genuinely amused bark. “What is your name, son of Apollo?” he asks, the dimples even more pronounced than before now that he’s smiling wider.  
  
“I… Baekhyun,” he stutters.  
  
“Baekhyun,” says the son of Hades slowly, as the world stops spinning around them. Their weapons forgotten, the quest forgotten, the Golden Apple forgotten. His name sounds good coming from this boy’s lips.  
  
“Tell me your name,” he demands, the dagger inching closer to the boy’s throat, eliciting a cocky smile from him.  
  
“Wow, you’re so bossy, I like it. I’m Chanyeol. Nice to meet you.”  
  


~

  
  
They pretend they’re only meeting by chance. Chanyeol will say or do something horribly annoying, like stealing the keys of Baekhyun’s father’s car the only time Baekhyun is allowed to drive it, or crashing Baekhyun’s date with a tall son of Athena that bails out when he realizes his presence is not really needed to call this a date.  
  
(“Good luck with this one,” Sungyeol says, _to Chanyeol_ , pointing at Baekhyun’s annoyed face. “He’s a lot to handle.” Chanyeol laughs and highfives him.)  
  
They spar. Baekhyun wins. All the times. Chanyeol doesn’t look too annoyed for his continuous losses and Baekhyun suspects that maybe, _maybe_ , the son of Hades is not giving his best, so he tries to push him to some kind of a breaking point. He hits him extra harder the next time, harder and harder, until Chanyeol finally snaps and, with a single, fluid movement, manhandles Baekhyun on the floor and kisses him.  
  
Baekhyun will never tell him he let him win.  
  


~

  
  
“Teach me how to spar,” whines Chanyeol, “and I’ll teach you how to play the lyre.”  
  
Baekhyun scoffs. “You don’t need my help to spar. You’re already too good at that, Chanyeol.”  
  
“Then teach me something useful.”  
  
Baekhyun teaches Chanyeol about flowers. Their names, their shapes, their colors. How they’re beautiful and fragile and so easy to crush. There aren’t many flowers in the Underworld, mostly gloomy-looking asphodels, so Baekhyun takes Chanyeol out to his mother’s flower shop during one of his rare trips home. They make bouquets together, Baekhyun naming the flowers one by one before guiding Chanyeol’s hand to touch them.  
  
“Don’t make that nervous face, they’re just flowers. They won’t bite you.”  
  
“My hands are so big, I’m afraid I’ll crush them,” whispers Chanyeol, as if afraid the flowers can hear him.  
  
Chanyeol’s fingers are awkward around the pale corolla of the poppies, the elegant petals of the freesia. He sticks forget-me-nots and lilies in mismatched bouquets with a happiness so pure it borders on reverence, and throws wildflowers at Baekhyun when he laughs at his messy composition. At night, they go out to play in the fields behind Baekhyun’s mother’s house. A firefly gets stuck in Chanyeol’s hair and Baekhyun reaches out and brush a few strands away, freeing the little light in the night sky.  
  
When he turns, Chanyeol is staring at him with starstruck eyes. He takes Baekhyun’s hands, kissing the ridge between his fingers.  
  
“You have such pretty hands, Baekhyun,” he says. “It’s like they were made to hold flowers.”  
  


~

  
  
Chanyeol never visits to Camp Half-Blood, despite Baekhyun’s protests.  
  
“I don’t understand what you’re afraid of, to be honest. It’s not like you’d be the outsider. You’ve already met all my friends and everyone, really Chanyeol literally _everyone_ , likes you. If I still have to hear one of my siblings talk about how nice, handsome and good at playing the lyre you are I’ll throw up. My father was even thinking about inviting you to dinner to hear you play after everyone sang your praises for months, I’m not joking.”  
  
“As nice as a dinner at Apollo’s sounds, I am afraid I will have to decline the invitation. I remember a legend about him skinning alive the last person who showed off his abilities with the zither in front of him. Not nice.” He looks at the bare trees surrounding them. The last snow is already melting, but it’s still cold enough to make Baekhyun regret he didn’t bring his gloves, and to paint his nose and cheeks a bright red. “Besides, it’s almost spring. Soon enough the Queen will leave and I just… I worry for my old man, you know? If I leave him alone, he’ll just stay coped up in his palace for the next six months. Someone has to distract him from thinking some other evil plan to overthrow his brothers. He tends to do that, after a good few weeks of moping.”  
  
Baekhyun pouts.  
  
“You can come and have dinner with us, though. Not in the Underworld, of course, my dad is terrible and his sense of humor includes serving pomegranate to the guests and then forcing them to stay forever, but we could, I don’t know, have pizza across the slopes of Mount Etna? We have a backdoor there.”  
  
“Wow, real Italian food. Aren’t you a keeper?”  
  
Chanyeol ruffles his hair, fondly. “I would ask you to come, but my part-time job also starts in a few weeks and I’ll be really busy at least until this fall.”  
  
It’s funny, really, how Chanyeol calls it a part-time job, but it really means keeping the Hells in check. “Most of the souls doomed to the Tartarus don’t know they are dead,” he says. “Every now and then, if I forget to check on them, they start doing things on their own. One time two different hells went to war, it was rad.”  
  
Baekhyun could listen to Chanyeol’s stories of the Underworld for hours.  
  
“I can’t believe there’s an entire world down there, and they don’t even have the slightest idea they are dead.”  
  
“That’s what their punishment is about. After being horrible in life, they are doomed to live empty, meaningless afterlifes. And when they die, they’re reborn again in the same hell. Forever. Well,” he muses, “not everyone. There are some lucky souls, sometimes, who can redeem themselves and go to the Elysian Fields.”  
  
He turns when he realizes Baekhyun is staring.  
  
“What? Did I say something strange?”  
  
“No, it’s just… I like when you tell me stories about your home.”  
  
“Oh, well, I really hope you don’t have any occasion to know more about the Underworld. For a long, long time,” says Chanyeol, leaving a gross, wet kiss on Baekhyun’s neck and making him giggle. “Race to the burger joint behind the corner?”  
  


~

  
  
Days bleed into weeks, seasons bleed into years. Chanyeol bleeds into the ground, as the world as Baekhyun knows it comes to an end.  
  
Hades has fallen and Apollo has fallen too. All the gods have been defeated and now there’s only a bunch of young demigods, most of them only barely adults, trying to steal the keys of the Underworld from Uranus, the leader of the titans, and free their parents from the deepest crevices of the Tartarus.  
  
The keys of the Underworld dangle from Chanyeol’s neck as three titans advance and Baekhyun wants wants _wants_ nothing more than a happy ending for the both of them, a happy ending in which he braids flowers in Chanyeol’s dark hair, kisses him deeply and soundly in front of the sea during a hot, summer night. But Baekhyun is a hero and he can’t let the world fall. Not on his watch.  
  
“At my signal, stop playing dead, get up and run away. If I can distract them long enough to get you inside the Tartarus, they won’t be able to catch you anymore. You can get down here and free the gods,” he says to Chanyeol.  
  
He receives back a blank, terrified look.  
  
“No way, no.”  
  
“Chanyeol...”  
  
“Not without you.”  
  
Baekhyun chuckles and the dagger in his hands dance. He’s a boy, all alone against three titans, and there’s no way he can win, but he smiles because, if there’s a good way to leave, it’s this one. With a smile on his lips. Saving someone he loves.  
  
“ _Not without you?_ What is this? A B-rated melodrama? I expected a better comeback from you, Son of Hades.”  
  
“Baekhyun, don’t...”  
  
“Tell my father I never learnt to play the lyra on my own because I wanted him to teach me, even if he never did. And, if I die... promise me you’ll live. I’m not sacrificing my life for nothing.”  
  
“Don’t you dare die, Baekhyun. If you do, I’m coming back for you. I’m dragging you out of the Underworld from the tip of your hair.”  
  
Baekhyun laughs but it sounds more like he’s crying. “This is the Chanyeol I know… Now, on the count of three,” he says. “One... Two...”  
  


~

  
  
  
  


**01**

  
  
“You know why it can’t be done, son of Hades. These are our rules and I won’t have one of our own breaking them just to save your boyfriend, no matter how nice and polite of a boy he was.”  
  
The first time Chanyeol sets foot in the Olympus, he expects to feel small. That’s how Baekhyun had described it, recalling the memories of the only time he was allowed in the house of the gods. _It makes you feel small and unimportant,_ he had said, and Chanyeol kind of understands the feelings. The gods are big, bigger than any human, taller than giants even, and the abode of the gods can only be as big and limitless at they are.  
  
But when Chanyeol looks around, at the faces of the gods and goddesses sitting around him, they all appear so small. The Olympus too is small, suffocating.  
  
“Baekhyun saved your life,” he says, slowly.  
  
“The son of Apollo died as a hero, and as a hero he will remembered, forever,” rumbles Poseidon, and his words are followed by a hum of agreement of the other gods. “We are offering you the Olympus, immortality, if you wish. Do not look down on the gifts of the gods.”  
  
Chanyeol shakes his head. These faces, so serene, so radiant and unsympathetic, are nothing but masks. He’s seen these same gods cry and languish in the Tartarus, where the titans had trapped them. He’s seen them fight, like petty children, blaming each other for their own failure. He’s seen them beg for help. He helped them. _Baekhyun_ helped them.  
  
“I don’t need immortality and the Olympus looks kind of boring without my friends. I only ask one thing of you, something you have already granted to mortal men in the past.”  
  
He can see a flicker of amusement in his father’s eyes. “Are you sure this is your wish? I was the one who opened the door of the Underworld to Orpheus and we all know what happened to him.”  
  
“I’m not Orpheus, father. I’m your son. I’m the prince of the Underworld. If there’s someone who can find Baekhyun’s soul in the Tartarus and save it, that’s me.”  
  
Zeus frowns. At the corner of his eyes, he can see Poseidon draws his lips in a tight line of disapproval. Athena shakes her head. _What a foolish boy,_ she mouths. Hades is looking at him like he’s seeing him for the first time.  
  
“Brother,” starts Zeus, “you know we cannot...”  
  
“I say we vote,” says another voice, and Baekhyun turns to look at Apollo, Baekhyun’s father. He looks bored, fingers drumming on his throne, eyes fixed on the sky outside. An embarrassed silence falls on the room, like all the gods have only then realized that Baekhyun was Apollo’s son. Just like Orpheus.  
  
“Brother...” says Artemis, but Apollo gestures for her to stop, whatever she was trying to say. He looks like a teenager, but when he looks up he is an immortal god.  
  
“After all, it is my son’s life we are talking about. And he died to save all our sorry asses, so I say we vote.”  
  
In a thick, heavy silence, they vote. Athena, Zeus and Poseidon vote against. Apollo and Hades votes in favor.  
  
Aphrodite smiles, “Ah, young love, let’s give the boy what he wants.” Ares follows her.  
  
“No,” says Demeter. “Yes,” says Artemis, looking at her brother Apollo with old, young eyes.  
  
Hera votes yes to spite her husband Zeus, Hephaestus votes no to spite his wife Aphrodite. Petty, childish and mean, that’s the real nature of the gods. Chanyeol waits as, one by one, all the gods vote, until the only one left is Proserpina, Hades’ wife.  
  
Chanyeol bites his tongue and hides the tremor in his hands. Proserpina never liked her husband’s bastard son.  
  
“So, what is your vote, goddess of spring?” asks Zeus, and everyone in the room turns to look at her. She only looks at Chanyeol. She smiles, cold, like a spring came too soon, in the middle of winter.  
  
“I vote in favor,” she says, softly. Everyone stares at her in surprise, but her eyes don’t leave Chanyeol. “But only at one condition. You can go to the Underworld, if you want, but before you enter the Tartarus you will have to bathe in the River Lethe.”  
  
Hades frowns. “If he does that...”  
  
“Yes, my dear, he’ll lose all his memories. He will forget his life, his family and friends, his lover’s name and his face. But that’s the price he has to pay for making such a foolish request in the name of love, don’t you think? If it’s real love, you should be able to find him even without your memories, am I wrong?”  
  
“What if I can’t find him?” asks Chanyeol, his throat dry, his head painfully light.  
  
“Oh, well. I guess you’ll just have to stay in the Underworld forever.”  
  
The gods nod to themselves. They all think Chanyeol will refuse. His eyes meet his father’s. The old man already knows he won’t.  
  
“Well then, if these are your conditions... I am grateful for your proposal, Queen of the Underworld, your kindness will not be forgotten,” he says, kneeling down with a flourished bow. “I accept.”  
  


~

  
  
  
  


**50**

  
  
Chanyeol knew he was meant to protect Baekhyun since the first time he saw him, in that old well at the edge of nothing, when Baekhyun had come out of the darkness, so young, fifteen years old maybe, his eyes wet and shining like stars, his tears brilliant in the eternal night of the maze.  
  
There are things Chanyeol simply knows. Mathematics. The temperature of boiling water. The jingle of a popular television show. Hoplite phalanx and other ancient warfare techniques. How to hold a shield and throw a spear, though he’s so much better with a sword in his hands.  
  
There are things Chanyeol _knows_ , in a way that nothing, not even the River Lethe, can take away from him. He knows he’s the son of Hades, Prince of the Underworld, and fragments of his legacy are scattered everywhere in this world for him to find. Every path is familiar, as if he’s walked it one thousand times. Every stone sings for him, every beast cowers in fear at the sound of his footsteps. The Underworld refuses to harm him.  
  
There are things Chanyeol doesn’t know. They were his own, a long time ago, but they were taken, stolen, washed away by the waters of the River Lethe. A face, a name, a secret. There’s a void in his chest, not the size of his heart. It’s a void the size of an entire world, a black hole that threatens to swallow Chanyeol too.  
  
After his arrival in the Underworld, for a time that feels like many years but could’ve only been a couple of days, Chanyeol simply wanders, exploring the maze, looking for a purpose, for a sign, for a hint, a map to the thing he most desires - even if he still doesn’t know what it is - and finds nothing. Until, suddenly, a star falls at his feet, burnt and broken and still shimmering like nothing else Chanyeol has ever seen in the maze - like it was never meant to belong to the maze.  
  
He still doesn’t know what exactly drives him to Baekhyun, to this derelict child who runs in the darkness, struggling to deliver salvation in a world of lost souls. Maybe it’s the stubborn light in his eyes, how he fights fear with persistent obstinacy, almost as if he’s trying to stay alive out of spite, as if refusing to surrender his light to the maze is the only form of retaliation he’s capable of. (It probably is.) He’s endearing. And pretty, like something Chanyeol is not supposed to touch. Not, like he first thought, like a star. Like a flower. (And Chanyeol’s hands falter with a fear he cannot remember, the fear of touching the flowers, of holding them too tight and crushing them. He touches Baekhyun anyway. He saves his life because it feels right. Because it _is_ right.)  
  
_Son of the Sun,_ is how the phoi call him in their choral voice, singing a song Baekhyun is not able to hear. _Son of the Sun, what are you doing here? Your place is in the Elysian Fields, to the eternal peace, to the meadows of the heroes._  
  
But Chanyeol looks at Baekhyun, so young, so thin, like a pale ghost, ready to disappear at the first wind. He looks at Baekhyun, standing on the edge of the precipice, shivering - not because he’s afraid to fall, but because he’s ready to fly.  
  
Chanyeol looks at Baekhyun as he grows up, bearing the weight of the maze on his shoulders, glowering and complaining and never giving up, questioning everything he’s ever known, and he thinks, this boy does not need salvation. This boy does not need peace. This boy does not need to stop - he needs to run he needs to fight he needs to love. This boy needs to live.  
  
The phoi said his place is in the Elysian Fields, but that’s not true.  
  
_His place is with me,_ thinks Chanyeol stubbornly, when he holds Baekhyun’s jaw, cupping his face in his hands to draw him closer, and kisses his breath away. Baekhyun’s lashes flutter down, and the light of the phoi stretches their shadow until it draws pale lines on Chanyeol’s fingertips. He squeezes tighter, feeling the skin give up at the pressure - Baekhyun is real under his hands, solid and and steady, he’s not going to disappear anytime soon. Baekhyun is real.  
  
_His place is not with you, Prince, you know he is dead. Let him go, let him find his end._  
  
End? Chanyeol hasn’t come to hell to see how things end. Kyungsoo’s life has ended and isn’t he still fighting his battles? Heaven is only a couple of steps and a few universes away and life is meaningless when you’re already dead, but the people of Dakrya, of Pophos, of Metameleya, of all the Buried Cities Chanyeol has seen but can’t remember, aren’t they all still fighting? Baekhyun is still fighting too. Death is just the beginning.  
  
“Death is just the beginning,” sing-songs Apollo’s voice, as he appears in front of Chanyeol in the lurid cell where the Hiereus has locked him. The God of the Sun still looks like a teenager. He wears a tacky, flashy hawaiian t-shirt and flip-flops. Chanyeol only remembers him because he’s a god, and he supposes not even the River Lethe can obliterate the air of glory and self-importance the gods often have. “At least, for those good enough to win it. You, though, my dear cousin, you seem to have come to your own end.”  
  
Chanyeol snorts. It’s the only thing he can do. The shackles are too tight for him to even be able to move.  
  
“What are you doing here? This is not your domain.”  
  
“And I thank the gods, including myself, every day for this blessing. This place is awfully depressing. But you’re right, Chanyeol. I’m not supposed to be here. We all promised we wouldn’t help you in this quest, there’s a signed deal and all that shit. But you know what, rules are made to be broken. Besides, I have my own reasons to think the other gods played their part too in this big scheme.” He shakes his head and clicks his tongue. “The Minotaur, really. Way to be obvious, Poseidon.”  
  
“What do you mean?” asks Chanyeol, confused. “What quest?”  
  
“What I mean, Chanyeol, is that you lost something.”  
  
Before Chanyeol can protest, he produces a lyre, similar in everything to the one Chanyeol was carrying with himself when he woke up in the Underworld, confused, powerless and lacking the only memory that mattered. His lyre was crushed by the soldiers of the temple, and yet here it is, perfect. Apollo plucks the strings once, experimentally, and the sound they produce feels like home.  
  
“Wait, how did you...”  
  
“I’m a god. There aren’t many things I cannot do.”  
  
With a snap of his fingers, the shackles holding Chanyeol down disappear. The god nods, pleased.  
  
“Now listen to me, soon enough that door will open and you will get a chance, your only chance to make things right. Don’t waste it.”  
  
“Why are you doing this?” asks Chanyeol.  
  
Apollo looks young, but there’s an old pain in his eyes. His smile is cryptic.  
  
“Because, a long time ago, I lost a son during a quest so similar to yours. He came back here to find something and in the end he could not do it. That failure haunted him to his death.”  
  
Oh, Chanyeol knows this story. But…  
  
“I’m not Orpheus,” he says, firmly.  
  
“No, you’re not. Orpheus was a fool. A fool in love, but a fool nevertheless. Don’t be like him. If you trust your boy, don’t turn back.”  
  
“How can I be sure he’ll be following me?” asks Chanyeol.  
  
Apollo leaves the lyre in his hands, a familiar weight, and smiles the timeless, eternal smile of the gods.  
  
“Oh, Chanyeol, don’t be silly. That boy would follow you to the end of the world.”  
  


~

  
  
  
  


**55**

  
  
Chanyeol resurfaces from the water of River Lethe to the sound of Baekhyun whimpering. Only then he realizes that his hand is empty. He lost Baekhyun, right before the river.  
  
“Chanyeol!” calls Baekhyun, and Chanyeol almost turns back to answer, because Baekhyun sounds so anguished, so desperate. He needs Chanyeol’s help. “Chanyeol, please, I can’t. I can’t do this alone. You have to help me. Look at me, please.”  
  
Chanyeol almost, _almost_ , turns back. He stops, his fists tight at his sides, the set of his shoulders rigid and tense. He struggles against every instinct in his body telling him to turn back and chase the sound of Baekhyun’s voice, to run to the one he loves, to his Baekhyun, the son of Apollo who likes flowers, who can’t play the lyre but is kind of unstoppable with a lyre on his hands. It took three titans to take him down. His nails dig in his palms. _He almost turns back._  
  
But Chanyeol is not Orpheus and Baekhyun is not Eurydice. They’re Baekhyun and Chanyeol and this is their own story. Chanyeol takes the lyre in his hands and gives it a first, experimental stroke, the sound crystalline and unexpectedly bright in the darkness of the maze.  
  
“I can lead you home,” he says, softly, “but you have to follow me, alright?”  
  
Now it’s all in the Baekhyun’s hands - it’s always been in Baekhyun’s hands. He only has to trust Chanyeol, to follow his lead. But maybe Apollo was right, Baekhyun would follow Chanyeol to the end of the world.  
  
Chanyeol takes a deep breath, plucks the strings of the lyre and sings a song about flowers.  
  
Chanyeol is in love, but he’s not a fool. He knows Baekhyun is following him. He trusts Baekhyun to follow him.  
  
He doesn’t turn back.  
  
They leave earth and death behind.  
  
  
  
_When you verge on waking  
you are only pain,  
you hold it in your eyes and blood  
but you do not feel. You live  
as a stone lives,  
as the harsh earth.  
You are clothes in dreams  
in gestures, in sobs  
of which you’re unaware. Pain  
like the waters of a lake  
trembles and encircles you.  
They are rings on the water.  
You let them fade.  
The earth you are, and death._  
  
Sei la terra e la morte  
— Cesare Pavese  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Words I shamelessly took from Ancient Greek:  
>  _phos/phoi_ : light  
>  _dakrya_ : tears  
>  _hiereus_ : priest  
>  _klæin_ : suffering  
>  _pais_ : child  
>  _pophos_ : regret  
>  _aganaktein_ : regret  
>  _metameleya_ : remorse  
>  _amortia_ : regret  
>  _daimon_ : demon  
>  _xiphos_ : short sword  
>  _apistein_ : doubt  
>  _agorà_ : the main square of a city  
>  _naos_ : the heart of a temple
> 
> Words I shamelessly invented:  
>  _koal_ : the main source of magic in Dakrya


End file.
